For law firms
Software for Melbourne law firms whose lawyers will not use it.
For 15-40 person firms where LEAP, Actionstep or Smokeball was rolled out two years ago and is now half-used by the people it was meant to help. The database underneath captures the matter and client record even when adoption stays patchy, so the practice manager stops chasing the same fields by email.
What we hear from practice managers and COOs
Practice managers describe the same five problems at every Melbourne firm we sit down with. None of them are the matter system's fault on its own. They are what happens when adoption is patchy and the system was never the source of truth in the first place.
- Lawyers will not use it. LEAP or Actionstep was rolled out two years ago. Adoption is always the problem. Senior partners type with two fingers and prefer email. Junior lawyers learn the firm's actual workflow from the lawyer next to them, not from the system. The matter management database has fields the firm cares about and lawyers ignore.
- Trust accounting compliance keeps you up at night. Reconciliation runs manually each month. Legal Profession Uniform Law obligations and Victorian Legal Services Board audit requirements sit on top of a spreadsheet that one person understands. Trust account audits are a stressful week. The LEAP and MYOB integration pattern is where this most often shows up: trust transfers hand-keyed between matter management and the general ledger, with a partner noticing the gap three months later. Our LEAP integration checklist for Melbourne law firms walks through what to confirm before you wire anything to the ledger.
- Matter profitability is invisible until the matter is closed. WIP ages quietly past 30, 60, 90 days. Partners are shocked at the writedowns at quarter-end. By then the conversation with the client about scope is twelve months too late.
- Intake leaks leads. A new enquiry calls on Tuesday. Conflict check takes two days. The intake form goes via email. The client engagement letter waits on a partner sign-off. By Friday the lead has called another firm.
- Documents live everywhere except the system. NetDocuments or SharePoint exists. So does the lawyer's Outlook folder, the shared drive named "Smith Matter Final v3", and the partner's desktop. Version control by hope. Conflict checking by memory.
None of these get fixed by switching practice management systems. They get fixed by deciding which system owns which field and putting a real database underneath that captures the truth even when the lawyer skipped a step. That is the work we do. See how we approach the integration side when LEAP, Actionstep or Smokeball already exists, or browse our full custom-software services for the broader picture.
Tools we work with
Practice and matter management
LEAP, Actionstep, Smokeball
The system the partners signed off on. We integrate it as the matter spine without fighting it. Time entries flow back into the ledger. Client and matter records stay aligned with NetDocuments and Outlook. The bits LEAP or Actionstep does not natively show (WIP ageing by partner, intake pipeline, scope-creep flags) live in the database underneath.
Trust accounting
LEAP trust, dedicated trust ledgers
Trust reconciliation cycle automated end-to-end where Legal Profession Uniform Law rules permit. Bank-feed reconciliation, controlled-money tracking, an evidence trail your auditor can follow. The Victorian Legal Services Board sign-off stays the partner's responsibility; the database makes the audit week stop being a write-off.
Documents
NetDocuments, SharePoint
The document store you already pay for. We build the integration that makes a new matter in LEAP create the right NetDocuments workspace without anyone clicking, files emails to the matter from Outlook, and stops the triple-handling between desktop folders, the shared drive and the DMS. Lawyers find files by client name; the firm finds them by matter ID.
Intake and conflict
Custom intake + conflict checks
Intake turned into a database flow rather than an inbox. New enquiry, conflict check, AML KYC, engagement letter, file open. Same-day where conflicts allow. Conflict checking against the actual client database, not a partner's memory. Intake leakage measurable for the first time.
Reporting
Power BI, Excel, the partner dashboard
Practice metrics that partners will actually open. WIP ageing by lawyer and matter type. Realisation rate by practice area. Intake-to-engagement conversion. Trust balance by matter. Built into the partners' meeting agenda so the conversation runs on numbers rather than memory.
The plumbing
The custom layer
Most of the value sits in what your firm has always done in lawyers' heads, in inboxes, or in templates that were last updated by someone who has since left. Engagement letter generation, scope-creep tracking, partner approval gates. We model that explicitly in the database so the firm runs the same way on the day a senior partner takes a holiday.
Adjacent proof / Melbourne wealth practice
The matter system stopped depending on one person.
We have not yet shipped a publicly-named law firm case study. The closest pattern from our recent work is a Melbourne wealth practice running on a fragile Access database. Different ledger, different practice manager. Same shape of broken, same database-first answer. Read the wealth practice CRM case study for the longer write-up of the adjacent pattern.
In that engagement, manual data entry dropped roughly 80%, and the firm stopped depending on the one person who understood the system. Why the pattern transfers to law: the shape of the problem is the same. Scattered records across LEAP, NetDocuments and Outlook. Manual reconciliation. One paralegal or partner who understands the workflow no one wrote down. Different regulator, same database-first answer. The accounting sibling at /industries/accounting-firms covers the same shape from the Xero side.
What we hear
We need to use Sharepoint but don't know how. I have stuff everywhere. Dropbox mostly as well stored on my desktop and within the CRM.
The engagement path
Discovery call
30 minutes with Marty (founder, doing this since 2007). You describe the firm, the tools, the bits that actually hurt. We tell you honestly whether what you are describing sounds like an integration job, a custom-software job, or a sharper LEAP rollout that would solve more for less. No pitch.
Systems diagnostic
A fixed-price piece of work. Most practice managers we meet have been burned by a partner-approved IT project that went over budget, so the diagnostic exists to put a real number on the table first. We map where each piece of matter and client data lives, who edits it, and which fields actually matter for billing, conflict checks and trust. You finish with a written diagnostic you can forward to the partner committee, a prioritised list of fixes and a scoped estimate.
Integration or custom build
Most law firms need both. The integration layer puts LEAP, NetDocuments and Outlook on speaking terms via a real database. The custom build models the work that does not fit any of those tools: intake flows, partner approval gates, scope-creep tracking, the partner dashboard. We build them in stages so the firm sees value inside the first quarter, and the lawyers see something that actually saves them time.
Ongoing support
We do not build and walk away. Vendors change APIs, court e-filing rules change, your firm grows. We stay on as a small ongoing engagement, usually a few hours a month, so the system gets fixed when it breaks and grows when the firm grows. The same person who built it picks up the phone.
We have been running this engagement model since 2007. See how we work.
Not sure if your firm needs custom software or a sharper LEAP setup?
Start with a 30-minute discovery call. We will tell you honestly. Most Melbourne law firms we talk to are one good integration away from a matter system that lawyers actually use. And if the diagnostic finds nothing worth fixing, you walk away with a clean bill of health for your systems.