A single source of truth

UK law firm Maurice Turnor Gardner keeps documents safe with NetDocuments.

About Maurice Turnor Gardner

Maurice Turnor Gardner is a boutique private client law firm of 45 top-tier lawyers based in London.

The firm has been offering its services since 1 May 2009 following the demerger of Allen & Overy LLP’s highly-rated Private Client Department.

With a global client base of ultra-high-net-worth families, the firm seeks to understand all the legal, commercial and tax issues affecting its clients to provide them with principled and practical legal solutions, working in partnership with them as their trusted advisers. It also covers tax disputes, particularly investigations and follow on litigation with the HMRC.

Real Estate, Philanthropy and Charities and Immigration practices complement the firm’s traditional strengths in tax and estate planning and disputes relating to wealth.

A future-proof platform to improve day-to-day legal processes

Documents are at the heart of how Maurice Turnor Gardner operates. Therefore, enabling its lawyers to easily and securely access and share important files is business critical.

Like many organisations, Maurice Turnor Gardner had to quickly transition to remote working due to the pandemic. When it came to document management, the firm was using its existing practice management system (P4W) to store and manage documents. However, this made searching for and collaborating on documents difficult, especially for users who spend their working day inside of Outlook, as it took time to switch between the different applications.

In addition, the only way the firm’s lawyers could access documents remotely was via a virtual desktop. While this provided security, it also required a reliable internet connection, which wasn’t always possible on home WiFi. If a lawyer’s connection dropped, it meant they would then need to reauthenticate each time, impacting the user experience. Maurice Turnor Gardner therefore wanted to move to a true cloud platform that would provide both the security that its high-net-worth clients demand and the flexibility to support its lawyers’ remote working needs.

“We required a solution that would enable our lawyers to work from anywhere with minimal disruption,” said Richard Price, Finance and IT Manager at Maurice Turnor Gardner. “At the same time, our new DMS needed to seamlessly integrate with our existing practice management solution, which underpins our business. By moving our document management to the cloud, we would be able to benefit from enhanced levels of flexibility and security.”

Strong APIs make for a quick and seamless implementation

NetDocuments stood out as the DMS of choice as it is built on the cloud, intuitive and enables lawyers to work seamlessly and securely within their day-to-day applications.

“From attending a number of industry events over the years, NetDocuments has always been on my radar. So, when it came to choosing a DMS, NetDocuments was top of the list as it was a true cloud platform with strong APIs,” continued Price.

NetDocuments’ implementation partner, Accesspoint Legal Services, was able to quickly build an integration with the firm’s practice management system using NetDocuments’ APIs, which meant Maurice Turnor Gardner was able to go live in only three months.

In addition, onboarding sessions were delivered to ensure all users were up and running successfully and could realise the benefits almost immediately.

“As with any IT rollout, it was crucial to ensure our lawyers were fully on board with the new systems,” said Price. “Implementing NetDocuments was the most well-received product change we have ever done. Our lawyers could immediately see how it could improve their ways of working, which was key to user adoption.”

Integrated applications improve productivity

Tools like the intelligent filing function of the NetDocuments platform have enabled Maurice Turnor Gardner’s 65 users to work more efficiently, saving them time searching for and filing documents. As a result, they have been able to spend more time on higher-value work.

“NetDocuments has made the lives of our lawyers a lot easier, which means they can focus on delivering the very best client service,” added Price. “We now have a future-proof DMS which will power our business for years to come, with added peace of mind that our documents are protected with the highest level of security in the cloud.”

By utilising the integration between the firm’s practice management tool and NetDocuments, Maurice Turnor Gardner’s lawyers have been able to work in P4W, Outlook, Word and NetDocuments with one central repository for information. This has improved productivity and ensured compliance, and now there is only a single source of truth in the NetDocuments cloud. With NetDocuments CollabSpaces, Maurice Turnor Gardner is now also able to share and collaborate with clients on documents stored on NetDocuments, providing the firm with an added layer of security.

With all of its documents residing in the cloud, Maurice Turnor Gardner now has complete confidence that its lawyers can quickly and securely access the files they need from wherever they are working. In addition, the significant number of integrations NetDocuments supports means the firm can futureproof its legal software stack by adopting a best-of-breed approach.  For the firm, this can only further enhance productivity and client service.