Portal Technology And The Legal Sector

Almost a third of all housing sales fall through each year. Between July 2018 and July 2019, a recent survey, conducted by Reallymoving found that 29% of all home sales collapsed before reaching completion. 

Of the number of transactions to fall through, a tenth were attributed to severe delays in the conveyancing process. 

Despite consumers demanding technology to solve the myriad communication issues leading to delays, the sector’s technological revolution is far from reaching optimal levels.  

Over half of all legal consumers polled by the SRA requested online communication and online legal service options.   

Yet, fewer than a third of all legal services are now available online or by email with around 50% of conveyancers offering an online facility to some extent. 

With 40% of the UK’s top 100 firms embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI), it seems as though the legal sector is starting to utilise the benefits of technology to improve efficiency. However, does this address the need to create a smoother consumer journey? 

A mere fifth of law firms are choosing to use portal solutions to help address this issue. Richard Mathias, sales director of Law  Firm Services Ltd who produce the Minerva Client Portal is able to offer key insights into technology, portal solutions and the benefits to all property stakeholders. 

How is technology currently being used in the legal sector? 

The long–awaited e-conveyancing revolution has yet to materialise and over the last 15 years we have seen various large scale attempts to make this happen. Remember the Land Registries Chain Matrix? Or maybe the ill faited Home Information Packs and who can forget the fiasco that surrounded the Law Society’s Veyo project. I don’t see any large scale project making a revolution although I do see some mis-guided souls trying to do just that – even today.  What I can see is technology helping improve the process in small but significant incremental steps. What people need to recognize is that this must be consumer driven, as right now transactions are taking longer than ever and client dissatisfaction with the process is probably at an all time high. 

Why are portal technology solutions beneficial to law firms, how do they improve efficiency and what impact do they have on the consumer journey? 

Portals are becoming common place in all areas of commerce. Banking, Insurance, even retailers all have secure online portals allowing customers to engage in a secure and speedy manner. As usual, the legal sector is lagging behind, but I can see signs this is beginning to change. 

Let’s be honest, right now more than 95% of law firms still send a huge amount of traditional mail to clients; especially on conveyancing transactions. It is still commonplace to send a large pack of forms for clients to complete manually.  

In today’s world of Portals and IT technology, it’s not what the modern customer should expect or receive. Completion of online firms is perfectly possible and will see a step change in the way firms work. 

What impact has Minerva had since it was introduced? 

Minerva Client Portal is proving to be one of those incremental changes the sector has been crying out for. We have reduced the process of onboarding a customer from two/three weeks to a couple of hours.  

Not only are there huge time savings but we have driven down the costs as well, with the ultimate loser being the royal mail. Not only this, we have improved client and law firm security, meaning fraudsters will find it that much more difficult to hijack conveyancing transactions as we have seen so many times in the recent past. 

How will this type of technology improve in the future?  

I can see many firms adopting this technology and it having a significant effect on the conveyancing process.  

Transaction times will come down, communication will be improved, security will be enhanced, and fraud will be reduced.  

Every firm owes it to both itself and to its clients to investigate the new technologies and adopt the ones that is right for them or risk being left behind in what I am sure will become a conveyancing revolution from within.