Roberts Law drives revolutionary approach to debt recovery with Visualfiles
Robert Barnard, managing director of Roberts Law, explains how the new firm is charting a new and innovative course in the legal market — with Lexis Visualfiles serving as a launchpad for exponential growth
New law firm Roberts Law is making waves. Established in July 2023, it is disrupting the market and redefining industry norms with its innovative, technology-first approach to the commercial debt recovery practice area.
Launching with three multi-billion-sized national corporations as clients, Roberts Law hit the ground running from day one with Lexis Visualfiles case management system as the core platform for business operation.
From disputed debts, international debt recovery and white-label outsourcing solutions, to tracing, investigation and insolvency, Roberts Law provides an array of legal services with refined, specialist knowledge and experience across the banking, finance, utilities and construction sectors.
From day one to rapid growth
Before opening its doors, Roberts Law deployed Visualfiles within a matter of weeks using the Visualfiles’ out-of-the-box debt recovery accelerator, a comprehensive suite of modules giving instant access to powerful workflows. The result? A staggering 5,000+ live accounts were managed effortlessly by just four fee earners.
Robert Barnard, industry specialist and managing director of Roberts Law, says: “Visualfiles hasn’t just given us a flying start — it’s our launchpad for exponential growth. In an industry often bogged down by traditional, outdated and manual processes, we’re charting a new and innovative course with technology at our core.”
Automation, the game-changer
Many debt recovery processes in law firms are often archaic, manually driven and time-consuming, leading to frustration among fee earners and support staff.
“Frequently, these processes remain in use because the underpinning technology is rigid,” Barnard elaborates. “The inefficiencies these habitual processes lead to result in the need for more staff, higher costs and, ultimately, a sub-optimal customer service.”
Roberts Law’s approach? Intelligent automation! The firm has fully exploited the advanced automation capabilities offered within Visualfiles, creating virtual legal assistant onboarding and inception workflows tailored to the firm’s business model and unique way of working.
Picture this: clients drop instructions by the tens of thousands, any time, day or night, 24/7, 365 days a year. Those instructions are processed automatically, with virtual legal assistants in Visualfiles instantly setting up accounts, populating templates and generating emails, ready for fee earners to review and action — all without human intervention. It doesn’t end there: the virtual legal assistants progress the individual accounts through the workflow — from receipt of instructions to letter before action.
“Our fee earners truly ‘fee earn’,” Barnard emphasises. “They focus on critical tasks like negotiations and specialised communications, while the virtual legal assistants in Visualfiles handle the rest, very effectively performing the role of personal assistants to the fee earners.”
Roberts Law has super-charged bulk legal issuance capability too. The firm has integrated Visualfiles with the Ministry of Justice’s claims production centre. The firm can now process thousands of cases daily, across different stages of the legal process — a feat that would otherwise require a veritable army of staff in a traditional setup.
Roberts Law has automated the production of legal forms with Lexis smart forms, making it much easier to populate and complete complex forms and maintain an up-to-date repository, yet again freeing up valuable time for the fee earners to focus on delivering client service excellence.
More automation on the cards
With a robust underpinning technology foundation, the firm is already scoping other technology integration projects. Integration of Visualfiles with an expanded client portal and an automated approach to the insolvency practice are currently in the pipeline.
The portal interface on the firm’s website is currently being expanded. When complete, clients, customers and debtors will have comprehensive visibility and full transparency on the status of their accounts. They will be able to run real-time business reports, view live updates and communicate with the firm directly from the portal, regardless of location, day and time.
“We’re not just adapting to the digital age, we are exploiting it for the benefit of all involved individuals and parties,” Barnard declares. “Our technology-driven model offers irrefutable benefits — work satisfaction for fee earners, cost savings and superior levels of service for customers, as well as increased efficiency and profitability for us and other third parties involved.”
A vision beyond corporate giants
With a future-proof, digital and scalable technology framework, Roberts Law’s ambitions extend beyond corporations. The firm has its sights set on an often-overlooked market segment — the small and medium-sized businesses struggling with debt recovery.
“Our vision is to become the ‘go to’ law firm for debt recovery in its broadest remit,” Barnard explains. “Alongside a strong corporate customer base, we are keen to offer our services to small and medium-sized businesses. Many of these organisations grapple with debt recovery challenges but don’t have the resources or expertise to deal with them. Thanks to Visualfiles, we can seamlessly scale to meet client requirements. Whether it’s one instruction or 10,000, we can handle it with equal ease, applying the same best practice processes, expertise as well as data safety and compliance standards — regardless of customer size or their standing in the market.”
Andrew Goodman, head of business development at LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions, remarks, “Roberts Law isn’t just using technology — the firm is leveraging it to reshape an entire legal sector. Their blend of market insight, experience, technological grasp and innovative spirit is truly impressive.”
As Roberts Law pushes the boundaries, the firm is making it increasingly clear the future for commercial debt recovery is automated and efficient, with no loss of expertise, but with simply greater accessibility for those who need it.
