One of the North West's leading commercial property law specialists has boasted that the completion of a major new project has propelled it into the ranks of the region’s most digitally advanced businesses.

Land Law has described how the creation of a unique cloud-based system has “speeded up and simplified” the management of its caseload and accounting operations.

The firm’s founder and Managing Partner, Angus Whyte, has said that the initiative – which involved a “substantial” six-figure investment and has taken more than 12 months to develop – allows clients instant and secure access to important documents via their smartphones.

He added that Land Law’s bold decision to design its own platform using a variety of powerful cloud-based components rather than buying a ready-made solution was already paying dividends.

“It’s no secret that commercial property is among the most document-heavy of all legal disciplines because the work involved is often incredibly complex.

“A single transaction, for example, can easily generate dozens of lengthy documents in addition to the layers of title information that has gone before. A firm like ours might work on many such projects with different individual clients over the course of any given year.

“Even though we have become progressively more digital over the course of the last decade or so, the pace of change in technology and the rate at which we have grown means that we needed a more flexible and capable system than was currently available to manage our entire administration so we set about designing our own.

“I am confident that what we’ve ended up with is more advanced than that used by any other law firm in the North West giving ‘real-time’ access to all files.

“More than merely being able to store more than three million documents which we have accumulated since we first opened our doors, it’s a very agile structure – reflecting both the way that we operate as a business and the business that we’re in – providing speed, convenience and, of course, avoiding wholly unnecessary fees, all without compromising security.

“It underlines how technology has begun to transform the working relationship between lawyers and clients. They and ourselves have already seen the clear benefits in the very short time since the system was switched on.”

Mr Whyte’s comments come just months after Land Law marked the twentieth anniversary of its foundation.

Over the course of the last 12 months, the Altrincham-headquartered firm – which works with some of the UK's biggest property residential and commercial property developers and landowners - helped complete a record £265 million worth of deals on behalf of clients.

They saw Land Law act as legal advisor on disposals, acquisitions and development schemes in the North West, North Wales, London, Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, the East Midlands and Merseyside.

Mr Whyte outlined how Land Law had chosen to work with the California-based cloud content management service Box as file server for its new IT project.

The bespoke structure brings together all of Land Law’s accounting, time recording, case management, HR and archive functions taking the best parts of a variety of cloud products and syncing them.

Correspondence related to individual cases is immediately saved and filed accordingly, while clients have near instant recall when searching for documents and relevant images stored in the Land Law system.

Mr Whyte has argued that opting for a unique design with multiple components rather than an off-the-shelf product was both “honest” and made sound commercial sense.

“After the initial investment, ongoing costs are minimal, whereas our use of the products will improve as we take fuller advantage of the range of functions within the management consoles.

“As a business, we appreciate the need to be flexible and competitive in how we work with clients and that’s precisely what this new arrangement gives us.

Rather than being inhibited by available, modular structures, we believe that having many linked generic products will allow greater flexibility in the long run.”