Tracey Solicitors
Case Study 1 – Will Generator
Our first case study for Tracey Solicitors was identified by an employee at the firm. She saw that there was an opportunity to grow the company by having a system and process to carry out efficient and accurate work. Her project was writing Wills for their clients. This is highly skilled but can be time consuming for the solicitor. As a result, she saw that there was a need for a Will Generator System using a standardised and safe procedure.
Key Challenges
There were several challenges with this project.
- First of all, there were no updated and accurate Will precedents.
- In addition, there was no way to select just what clauses you wanted.
- Next, typing, copying and pasting led to errors and typos.
- Then, the precedents for letters, attendance sheets etc. were out of date, irrelevant, the ones required are not there.
- Specific Will diary reminders were not available.
- Finally, there were no useful Case Steps.
We provide a highly organised, streamlined and efficient legal service, where planning and productivity results in business excellence.
8-Step Problem-Solving Process
In trying to solve a particular problem, we advise using the 8-Step Problem-Solving Process:
- Problem
- Current State
- Target
- Root Cause Analysis
- Select Countermeasures
- Implementation
- Evaluation
- Standardisation & Learnings
Key Actions
We introduced a Kaizen event to the firm. Kaizen event is a team brainstorming workshop. Moreover, it has a specific goal for improving a business process and minimising waste within a department or company. Through “silent sharing”, we encourage all participants to think, reflect and share their ideas on post-it notes.
Then, we put all these ideas on an Impact/Ease Chart to assess the potential impact or benefits they will have on the company. The result is a visual representation of where best to assign time and resources. We don’t discard any issues as their assessment may change over time as other problems are resolved. These four activities can be summarised as follows:
- Just Do It – these ideas have high impact and are easy to do now.
- Why Not? – these issues have low impact and are easy to address.
- Projects – ideas that have high impact but are difficult to address.
- Not Now – issues that have low impact and are also difficult to address.
From this event, the firm created a Master Will to encompass every conceivable clause used in the last two years. In addition, they consulted the main textbooks on Will drafting to ensure that no clauses were missed. Finally, their In-house System Designer designed and implemented the Will Generator.
Key Outcomes
This project has had significant impact on Tracey Solicitors.
- First of all, the firm achieved time savings of 1.5 hours per Will.
- Next, they eliminated waiting time between appointments.
- Certainly, this project eliminated risk to the firm.
- Tracey Solicitors also want to take it further by developing a computerised instruction sheet combined with Will Generator.
We firmly believe that the expertise to develop business process improvements already exist in every organisation. This has clearly been the case in Tracey Solicitors. Through their employees’ Lean projects, the company has made significant continuous improvements to their business.
ETAC has worked with Tracey Solicitors to streamline their business and improve their processes. We hope you enjoyed reading about this Will Generator case study. You may be interested in reading the two other case studies featured here Case Study 2 – Preparing Files for Hearing and Case Study 3 – Centralised Undertakings Register. All our case studies are available here.