Denovo have seen a surge over the past few years with hundreds of law firms turning to the Glasgow-based software provider to help them run their business more efficiently.
We reached out to Steven Hill, Denovo’s Managing Director, to find out why he thinks so many solicitors are choosing Denovo over other legal tech providers…
Who are Denovo?
That’s actually quite a common question we get in England and is one of the main reasons we want to introduce our brand to a new audience. In short Denovo Business Intelligence are a legal software company who are all about making lawyers lives easier.
Our founder, George Blair, set out to achieve that goal over 40 years ago. The journey began in the early 80’s providing law firms and other businesses with legal accounting machines, printers and personal computers. The business expanded to software solutions exclusively built for law firms in the early noughties, and then moved to full cloud-based software solutions from around 2011. Step forward into 2024 and we continue to help lawyers innovate and push the boundaries of efficiency within their businesses. Nowadays we believe we have the most customisable legal case management and accounts software platform in the market, which we developed right here, in the UK.
Our market leading legal software is the considered to be the operating system for hundreds of law firms across the country. Our efforts listening, working, and innovating with law firms, particularly over the past 5 years, mean we have integrated our technology into the DNA of practices in ways that even suspire the law firms we partner with.
When we launched our latest case management platform, CaseLoad, back in 2019, we set out with one purpose in mind – remove the repetitive, admin tasks associated with legal work. The objective is and has always been to give lawyers more time to spend with their clients, automate their processes to help manage their businesses, have a more productive working day and to get some of their personal time back.
Why have a lot of English law firms never heard of Denovo?
We’ve spent the majority of our time working with firms in Scotland. We’re based in Glasgow and in the past, we have grown strictly on a referral basis so our reach into England has been very limited. Since the launch of CaseLoad, though, we have grown very quickly and word has started to spread over the border. Firms from all across the UK are now using CaseLoad, so we felt we must be doing something right. Along the journey we decided – what if we actually did some marketing in England – many more firms would be able to enjoy the benefits of our software, just like firms up north.
What’s different about Denovo?
Our software is very much solicitor led, meaning we collaborate with solicitors and treat them as the innovators, to help design and develop innovative solutions and services for their businesses. We base the features of our software in reality. To do this we need to work closely with solicitors and their support teams to understand exactly what their challenges are and how they would prefer to work.
By doing this we have worked collaboratively with our clients and built a software platform that is dynamic, fully customisable, and ever evolving. We’re really proud to say the time spent listening to our law firm partners and their support teams seems to be paying off as we are now the software of choice for thousands of solicitors.
I’m sure there are plenty of other legal software companies that talk to firms but the feedback we get is that we truly listen. And not only that, we act on what we are told. That seems to be the biggest point of difference.
We have a unique offering in that we offer a fully customable case management and fully compliant legal accounts software system built into one platform. We are told by many of the firms we work with in England that this is a point of difference, so we hope more firms will take a chance and look at what we can offer them.
I would also say that we have been working with a lot of frustrated lawyers over the past few years. The ones that approach us are always looking for the same thing – they want to make the change to a more customisable, reliable, and more supportive platform. Many also like that our HQ is here in the UK. The most interesting thing is that users of other platforms have been approaching us and joining the Denovo community. None are going in the opposite direction, that’s really testament to our team and how much time they spend ensuring our law firm partners get the most out of our software.
Moreover, the feedback that we’re getting is not all about the software, our continual innovation, and our kaizen approach. What is most prevalent when firms are telling us why they eventually moved to Denovo from other providers is that we treat the lawyers as the innovators – they tell us what they want and what they need. We then work in partnership with them to get the software platform that works for them and their firm.
You say you’ve primarily worked with Scottish firms; do you think that will stop English firms using your software?
No. It’s really just that we haven’t announced ourselves to the English market. We have had English law firms partnering with us and using our case management and accounts software very successfully. In fact, we have firms across the north pf England have been working with us for over 20 years. It has been our English clients who are the ones encouraging us to properly come into the market.
What’s your ambition for working with lawyers in Leeds?
The tech world is evolving. It’s only a matter of time before everyone adapts and uses new tools. Legal tech is no different. As client needs change law firms need a partner who is flexible. We know that the legal market is adopting tech at pace. We genuinely believe that we are well placed to ensure that we help law firms in this region keep up with this pace, innovate, and provide an infrastructure that is built for the future. With CaseLoad, we’ll ensure your legal practice is never left behind.
How would people get in touch?
I would encourage anyone interested in finding out more about us to visit denovobi.com. There is a lot of info on there about our software, ourselves, and some of the law firms we partner with. If anyone reading this has a spare 5 minutes, I would encourage them to check out the site and have a look around. They might just find the platform they’ve been searching for! And if anyone would like to reach out to me directly for a chat, my email is stevenh@denovobi.com.
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