Firm saves 500 hours a year with digital contract packs
With Contract of Sale from InfoTrack, the majority of a conveyancing contract pack is pre-populated with documents — sparing Thomas Flavell & Sons lawyers multiple mundane sourcing journeys, site visits and uploads for all the information to produce a single pack
Thomas Flavell & Sons is a law firm with a 200-year history serving the local community in Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Transforming from a traditional high- street firm into a forward-thinking legal practice, the firm is embracing technology to deliver exceptional service to clients.
Service excellence, coupled with a focus on adapting to the ever-changing legal market, led Thomas Flavell & Sons to InfoTrack to improve efficiency in their conveyancing workflow. Sarah Workman, conveyancing manager, shares how the firm is saving 500 hours annually by switching to digital contract packs.
The challenge: finding a better way to manage contract packs
The team at Thomas Flavell knew preparing contract packs was taking longer than it should. Sourcing the registered title from HMLR, the plan, any documents referred to in the title, and onboarding forms was repetitive and unproductive. Each document would be saved, then uploaded to the case management system (CMS) before being attached to an email. Next, a contract was created in the CMS, and attached to the email along with any documents from the client. All of this before anything could be sent.
It’s a process familiar to anyone working in conveyancing, often taking the team up to 30 minutes per contract pack and requiring repetition of sourcing, saving, uploading, and attaching documents from multiple sites.
“It was always a case of feeling like we were doing the same thing three or four times just to get to the end result,” says Workman.
“The process was very long-winded. It seemed an arduous situation that we would be in trying to get these contract packs prepared, and it was frustrating having to get everything from different sites just to pull together one contract pack,” she continues.
The solution: Contract of Sale for digital contract packs and sharing
Having used InfoTrack for a range of digital conveyancing solutions since becoming a client in late 2016, Thomas Flavell was keen to try Contract of Sale to prepare their contract packs digitally.
Looking for a way to reduce stress and create a more efficient way to create and share contract packs, Workman and the conveyancing department began trialling Contract of Sale. Already using eCOS, InfoTrack’s client onboarding solution, the process was further improved because it already had the required TA forms. With everything mapped to the CMS, up to 80% of the contract pack is pre-populated using relevant documents, saving the firm visits to multiple sites to source the information. Everything is automatically attached, including the register, title plan and EPC, and they publish and send directly within InfoTrack – no need for additional emails or saving anything back down to the CMS.
Workman shares that Thomas Flavell chose to switch to digital contract packs with InfoTrack because they trusted the technology: “InfoTrack is always progressing and developing, which means we know if we do the majority of our work through the platform, we’re always going to be up to date with the latest laws and the latest forms.”
Getting started was easy, beginning with a few conveyancers trialling the service before rolling it out across the whole department. Sarah advises that the system is intuitive, meaning little to no time is required for training, and new starters can get onboard quickly.
“The rollout was really easy and that’s down to the ease of the system. You can literally click on Contract of Sale and you know what to do instantly. It’s not complex, you don’t need lengthy training on it,” she says.
The outcome: saving 500 hours per year
Thomas Flavell is saving an average of 500 hours a year across their 13-strong team of conveyancers. Knocking 25 minutes off the time taken to prepare and share contract packs, the team now have more time to focus on complex legal tasks and servicing clients.
“Knowing you’ve got a contract pack to send out, and that you can do it in five minutes and then move on to the next task, is more efficient and effective for us and our support staff,” explains Workman.
Not only is preparing and sharing new digital contract packs now easier, but Workman also adds it has made a difference when a sale falls through.
“Previously, we would need to amend the contract in the CMS, get everything uploaded again, attach to the email, and send. Now, if we have a sale fall through and there’s a new buyer, it’s really easy to make amendments, such as the price in the contract, putting in the new email address, and it’s just gone,” she says.
Why do Thomas Flavell & Sons recommend InfoTrack?
Workman says it best: “The experience we’ve had with InfoTrack has been nothing shy of amazing.
“Knowing how we work with InfoTrack now, we would struggle to work any other way because it is so easy from start to finish, whether for a sale or purchase. It’s all in one place and integrates with our case management system. It saves a lot of stress, and that’s what we need.”
She concludes with advice to her conveyancing peers: “To anybody who’s not using InfoTrack for contract packs, get onboard! The amount of time that Contract of Sale has saved us in preparing contract packs, alongside all the other features on the platform, is unbelievable.”
