The Problem

The client has a 3-month timeframe to clawback fees on cases and they have been manually reviewing cases to determine whether a clawback is needed.

The problem was that not all members of staff were reviewing the cases consistently or accurately, which resulted in the client missing the 3-month deadline and not being able to claim their fees back and incurring significant losses.

The Solution

An automated system was put in place on Proclaim to manage the whole process. The Clawback process would begin as soon as the case was opened to ensure each case was reviewed no later than a week before the deadline to assess its prospects. This would also be flagged to the case handler each time they reviewed the case up until the point they made a decision on the prospects of the case and if a clawback was required.

However, safeguards also needed to be put in place to ensure cases were being assessed correctly before they were flagged up to management. A checklist process was created so that relevant parties were notified and the correct assessment of the cases prospects were undertaken inline with the firm’s internal procedures. This ensured the case handler would exhaust all possible avenues before flagging the case as no prospect and referring to management to make the final assessment on the clawback

Once authorised, the case handler would be able to perform the correct file closure procedure in accordance with the firm’s compliance policy. This helped to ensure that managers were not being unduly burdened with the administrative task of closing the case and accounts, and were only reviewing cases that ought to be reviewed.

Furthermore, the whole process was monitored by daily reports provided to managers so there was no danger of cases not being reviewed in time.

The Benefit

The new process prevented any members of staff from bypassing the clawback deadline, ensuring that if a clawback was needed, then the fee earner would complete the checklist, notify the relevant parties and prevent the firm from losing money. 

The task was also significantly streamlined as the information on each case was now easily visible and accessible to all who required it.

How can Legal Practice Support Assist?

If you would like to discuss the automation of the clawback process, or any other type of automation into your Proclaim system, or to discuss general Proclaim development, please do not hesitate to contact enquiries@legalpracticesupport.co.uk for further information.

James Denby is Head of Proclaim Development at Legal Practice Support and possesses in excess of eight years’ experience, both in-house and as an external consultant, in developing legal case management systems.  James is also uniquely in the position of having worked as a Senior Manager within a law firm, and as having conducted his own caseload as an experienced Paralegal.  As a seasoned Proclaim Developer, James understands the requirements of any IT system/workflow/task from the view of the user, as well as from an IT perspective.