With legal technology developing at pace, Today’s Wills and Probate brings all the latest innovation together in a regular round up of news, updates and upgrades for private client teams.
Here, in the first of what will be a regular look at all the latest tech news and developments, we share the latest news from InTouch, SafeKeep, LyfeGuard, Videosign and Kent law firm Manak Solicitors.
Cloud-based case management platform InTouch has partnered with Charlotte Ponder, founder of WillComply and a recognised voice on private client governance and operational risk, to build a suite of wills and probate workflows.
Designed by Ponder and built into InTouch, the workflows give firms a tested operational blueprint for private client matters from the moment they go live. Clients can adopt them as they are or configure their own variants.
“Private client teams have been underserved by case management software for too long,” Ponder said. “What I’ve built with InTouch is the workflow I wish every firm had on day one; practical, compliant, and grounded in how wills and probate work actually gets done. Firms can pick it up and run with it, or shape it to fit how they practice. Either way, they start from a stronger position.”
Demos can be requested at intouch.cloud.
Accord Legal Services has signed an agreement to formally recommend digital vault app SafeKeep to its 100,000-strong client base, which includes partnerships with police federations, NHS organisations and educators.
SafeKeep was founded to address a gap in how people manage and pass on critical personal documents. It functions as a secure digital filing cabinet, allowing users to store and organise wills, lasting powers of attorney, insurance policies, trusts and driving licences in one place.
Its AI capability flags expiring documents, incomplete wills and missing LPAs, prompting users to take action before problems arise.
Sarah Williams, CEO of Accord Legal Services, said: “We see what happens when families are left without documents in order. It creates distress at the worst possible moment. Our clients are police officers, nurses and teachers, people who understand exactly what’s at stake and yet many haven’t taken the steps they need to.
“SafeKeep removes a lot of the complexity and we are recommending it because it works.”
Secure digital platform Lyfeguard is being made available to clients of UK law firm Buckles Law. The platform is designed to help ensure important information can be accessed by trusted contacts, helping to reduce uncertainty for families and executors when important information needs to be located quickly.
Clients will be able to access Lyfeguard’s independent platform to organise and store important documents – from wills and lasting powers of attorney to property and financial records – in one secure place.
Fraser Stewart, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Lyfeguard, said: “Legal matters often involve some of the most important information people will ever need to access, share, or protect. By making Lyfeguard available to clients, Buckles Law is helping support a more organised, secure, and practical approach to managing that information, not just during major life events, but in everyday life as well.”
Remote signing software company Videosign has expanded its partnership with managed hybrid cloud and cyber security provider Brightsolid as it develops new AI-based services for legal professionals.
Videosign provides a video-based platform for remote signing and witnessing of documentation, allowing users to remotely and compliantly identify, verify, meet, sign, record and audit transactions in a secure, legally admissible way.
The Liverpool-based company is now working with the support of Brightsolid to develop a selection of AI-based services including instant generation of meeting notes and action points, as well as automation of administrative tasks for lawyers and other professionals.
Videosign CEO Steven Tallant said: “Videosign’s combination of video, identity verification and document signing means it works well for legal professionals, providing a ‘face-to-face’ digital setting as a secure way to meet, verify and sign contracts, with integrated ID verification and eIDAS-compliant signatures.
“Our forthcoming AI functions will take things to the next level – allowing professionals to have more natural and engaging conversations with their clients while Videosign takes care of the note-taking and form-filling.”
And finally, Kent-based law firm Manak Solicitors has developed a legalese translator which will ‘translate’ legal documents into language easier to understand for different generations.
Users can paste text or upload documents and choose from a drop-down list of styles including Boomer, GenZ and a plain-speaking ‘standard’ mode.
Try the tool at https://manaksolicitors.co.uk/legalese-translator/
