Ashtons Legal chooses BigHand Workflow to optimise flexible working practices and service delivery


Leading East Anglia law firm, Ashtons Legal, is set to implement BigHand’s legal-specific workflow solution to support its flexible working policy and maximise its support provision for lawyers and clients.

The technology-forward firm has multiple practice areas operating across its four offices with every team currently managing legal support work in different ways. Despite enforced remote working removing the geographical office barrier for its teams, the firm needed a uniform way for legal work to be delegated and processed throughout the firm.

Luke Hurst, Head of Business Systems at Ashtons explains, “When COVID-19 hit, it was largely business as usual for the firm, thanks to the robust flexible working policy and systems we already had in place. What became apparent, however, was that remote working highlighted an existing problem of a lack of visibility over the support workflows throughout the firm.”

He continues, “A small part of the support function is centralised, and we plan to extend this further to best serve our lawyers and clients. But in order to plan for the future we need better visibility into what types of work are being sent to which resources, where the bottlenecks are, and to be able to move work around depending on capacity.”

BigHand Workflow will provide Ashtons’ support staff with one centralised view of all tasks, and an effective way to move work around. Lawyers will be able to assign tasks to the right support resource and track the progress for more informed client updates. The firm will also be one of the first to take advantage of BigHand’s latest version, with added granularity of reporting into key operational data around work types, volume, capacity and time utilisation.

“We were impressed with the level of data insight provided by BigHand Workflow. The fact that our management can have visibility into the vital operational data needed to make informed business decisions around future centralisation was a winner for us. That and the BigHand Team too, who have a wealth of knowledge in legal workflows, and have provided excellent service throughout the process.”

Luke shares another reason for adopting the technology, “We want to use BigHand Workflow to empower our senior support staff to assign tasks to the correct level of resource internally. This should make their jobs easier by being able to concentrate on work suited to their role, and remove added pressure to complete all the tasks sent to them from certain lawyers.”

“In a similar vein, BigHand Workflow will also provide the insight we need to ensure lawyers are still optimising billable hours by delegating administrative work, and not completing this themselves while working from home.”

Ben Hallatt, newly appointed Chief Operating Officer at Ashtons and champion of BigHand Workflow, commented, “As we come out of lock down, we want to ensure we learn from this time and fully optimise our flexible working practices. BigHand Workflow will not only help to make our support service function operationally excellent, but the powerful data analytics will help management to make informed resourcing decisions that will future-proof the firm.”

About BigHand Workflow Management

To provide the best client service while supporting your bottom line, it’s vital to ensure your teams are working efficiently and smartly. Ineffective and outdated methods of delegating tasks makes it easy for things to be overlooked, means your workforce isn’t properly optimised, your tasks aren’t being delivered on time, and your bottom line is suffering as a result. BigHand Workflow Management is a task management solution that lets you turn your tasks into fully auditable, digital workflow entries. You can create tasks from voice, email, electronic or paper-based requests – from document production requests to reprographics and travel bookings.

BigHand Workflow Management