Appleby Spurling & Kempe Barristers & Attorneys: Streamling the internal workflow process of processing incorporations.

Background

Appleby Spurling & Kempe, the first Bermuda law firm to embrace the new possibilities provided by the growth of electronic commerce, is known globally for their ability to offer clients good legal advice in a timely manner.

The Challenge

Businesses have been drawn to Bermuda by its status as a "blue-chip" jurisdiction that enjoys an excellent reputation in the business world. Bermuda-based law firm Appleby Spurling & Kempe has provided offshore incorporation services to its clients for years.

The incorporation process has been a time-consuming process for clients that choose to incorporate in Bermuda involving dozens of documents, numerous information, compliance checks, questions and telephone calls. Appleby Spurling & Kempe wanted to differentiate itself from more traditional law firms, who have been slow to recognize the need to change their business model to fit the requirements of today's businesses.

The challenge was to streamline Appleby Spurling & Kempe's internal workflow, while establishing the firm as a technological leader in the legal industry and develop a less time-consuming process for clients that choose to incorporate in Bermuda.

The Solution

Appleby Spurling & Kempe took advantage of our Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Commerce Solutions, that provided a flexible, powerful and secure web solution.

Windows® 2000 Server, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 and Microsoft Office XP offered us the ability to build and implement a scalable site while ensuring the site's management would be efficient.

Use of Microsoft's Site Server, Commerce Edition facilitates the payment process by offering users the ability to use VISA or MasterCard, or other traditional methods of payment. This secure method of payment uses Secure Socket Layer encryption and HTTP Authentication technology to ensure the security of online transactions.

Once information is gathered in an online questionnaire, COM objects, Active Server Pages (ASP) and Dynamic HTML (DHTML) populate fields in each of the forms necessary to support the incorporation process. As a result, the same data fed into the online site is used to create the corporate constitutional documents. When the questionnaire is complete, the site generates the forms for printing and review, first by the law firm and then for approval by the island's regulatory agencies.

An incorporations administrator used to take 8 to 10 hours to produce the necessary documents. This same document production is now done in 60 seconds at the press of a button.

Just AS&K [Inc] improves the lines of communication enabling clients to easily monitor the progress of the incorporation and organization of their company. By using this solution, the client is transformed into the master of the relationship with Appleby Spurling & Kempe and the process of incorporation through 24-hour access and status tracking.

The new system exceeds usual service models in its clarity, reliability, user-friendliness, speed and help functions. With a reliable, scalable and innovative front-end solution to a well-defined business opportunity, Appleby Spurling & Kempe can look forward to a huge amount of interest from established clients and new businesses that wish to incorporate.