Durham County Council are responsible for the needs of the nearly 520,000 residents of County Durham. Every single day, their Legal Services teams deal with matters of life and death — whether it’s protecting the vulnerable or safeguarding children. If they get something wrong, the consequences can be life changing. As there is simply no room for error, it’s essential that they know the law and apply it correctly the first time.
At the same time, they have a responsibility to the public purse. They need to get the maximum value for their budget and ‘do more with less’. With their previous legal resources provider’s contract up for review, they decided to take a trial of Lexis®PSL, Lexis®Library and Lexis Smart Forms and Precedents. They wanted to reduce their spend without compromising on content.
Prudent procurement
As part of their rigorous procurement process, the Legal Services team had a savings target of 30% for any contract review or renewal. By signing a multiyear contract with UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥, they were able to exceed this target and save 50% on their first year’s subscription.
But cost savings weren’t the only consideration. For Legal and Democratic Services Practice Manager Sam Thompson, having a simple pricing and invoicing structure from one supplier made it easier to plan, budget, track and control costs. With UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥, Sam spends less time on admin and more time adding value. The price certainty allowed him to get a three‐year budget approved in advance.
“There is the stark reality in local authority that your budget is your budget. If you overspend in one area, you look to balance it with underspend in another. Switching to UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ has allowed us to cut our first year’s subscription in half.”
“Switching to UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ has allowed us to cut our first year’s subscription in half.”
One for all
Not only does UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ cost less, it immediately saves Durham County Council’s 25 solicitors time.
When researching, they can hop from the clear and concise practical guidance in LexisPSL to the underlying source law in LexisLibrary with just one click. There is no need to log in to different products or waste time repeating the same search. By automatically suggesting relevant content, guidance and precedents — UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ helps the legal team find and use more relevant content. With one search, they get more value from UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥.
“I find the LexisPSL layout particularly useful. There is an overview button at the top of the page, with tabs for different types of resources — practice notes, legislation and so on. Everything you need is there. And I like how the practice notes are set out as the practical issues we face, rather than a textbook.”
Topical toolkits
Durham County Council’s Legal Services UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ contract began just as COVID‐19 struck. The team were suddenly working from home just as there was a huge spike in demand for their advice.
From day one, UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ was set up to allow the team to access all the law and guidance they needed from anywhere. The UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ COVID‐19 toolkit gave immediate and easy access to relevant news, practical guidance, Q&As and tools, tailored specifically to different practice areas.
The Children, Adult and Health team have also found having Jordan’s Family content available online indispensable through lockdown. They were all able to access the text at any time and from any place.
The UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥’ Brexit toolkit is also helping the team to answer pressing questions on EU and UK Constitutional Law.
“Since lockdown I have had to deal with quite a few urgent COVID‐19 issues and its effect on contracts and suppliers. Having a resource with everything at my fingertips has been great, as has the COVID‐19 toolkit generally.”
Seamless transition
One of the most common concerns when switching legal intelligence provider is the downtime. Durham were worried that switching and training whilst in the midst of a pandemic whilst working from home would be a problem. With UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥, it wasn’t an issue.
As an online system, there’s nothing to setup or install. It is simple and intuitive to use. UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ ran a series of virtual support sessions to make sure DCC’s Legal Services teams were ready to hit the ground running from Day One.
All of this meant Legal Services were able to make a seamless transition to the new system, with no downtime or teething problems. They were free to focus their precious time and energy where it really matters — on the people of County Durham.
“It seems to have been a fairly painless transition over to UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥. I was expecting to have an inbox full of queries, but it’s all gone very smoothly.”
LexisPSL has evolved into Lexis+® UK
All our practical guidance tools and content are now fully integrated with legal research on Lexis+ UK, see the practical guidance and the underlying law it supports all in one place.
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