All 3 successfully completed the challenge raising a fantastic £2,125.50 for The Candlelighters cancer charity. Thank you to all those who have donated so far.

Each of our fundraisers had never competed in a Half Marathon before, but this didn’t stop them posting some impressive times – with Karen finishing in the top 14% of the female entrants.

Karen: 1h 51m 29s

Paul: 1h 51m 45s

Andy: 1h 56m 40s

Business growth opportunities for the nation’s legal services firms are to be bolstered as the UK’s leading Case Management Software provider, Eclipse Legal Systems, appoints Leeds-based response marketing agency, The Black Hole, to help increase its lead on the competition.

The appointment, following a four-way pitch, supports Eclipse’s ambitious growth plans and work will include a market positioning review, new messaging, branding and customer contact strategies.

Darren Gower, Head of Marketing at Eclipse Legal Systems, said:

“Today’s lawyers must be quick to respond to changing customer requirements & spot new opportunities. Not only is our Proclaim software best in class for effectively managing caseloads, it actively helps develop the client relationship, opening up new avenues for business growth. So we need a marketing partner that can help us to cement our position and open up new business opportunities.

“It is key for us to work with a team offering a proven ability to understand customers and generate significant response, and as a response specialist, The Black Hole is right for us. We were very impressed at the effort and level of understanding displayed by The Black Hole. Not only did the initial creative suggestions stand out for me, but also the agency’s understanding of our market place and how to drive more opportunities from it.”

Ian Feber, Founder and Creative Strategy Director, The Black Hole, said:

“We’re very pleased to be working with a market-leader like Eclipse. The Black Hole brings specialist experience in developing propositions, marketing strategy and creative that grows businesses, providing clear returns on investment, and we look forward to generating significant results with the team at Eclipse.”

The annual Claims Innovation Awards celebrate how firms, teams and individuals from across the legal services and claims management landscape constantly find new ways of raising standards, growing business and improving access to justice.

The full list of winners is below!

• Best Use of Technology: i-sign
• Client Care Initiative: Ageas Insurance Limited
• Claims Management Company Team of the Year, 1-50 Employees: S&G Response
• Claims Management Company Team of the Year, 51+ Employees: Atrium Legal Services
• Legal Services Team of the Year, 1-10 Partners: Express Solicitors
• Legal Services Team of the Year, 11+ Partners: JMW Solicitors
• Associated Industries Team of the Year, 1-10 Employees: Photofile Ltd
• Associated Industries Team of the Year, 11 – 100 Employees: HARTECuk
• Associated Industries Team of the Year, 101+ Employees: i-sign
• Online Initiative of the Year: Professional Solutions Learning & Development
• Rising Star: Kevin Timms, Garden House Solicitors 
• Outstanding Innovator of the Year: Neil Hudgell
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Andrew Twambley

With offices in the picturesque Lake District (Cumbria) and Old Bailey in the heart of London, Gedye & Sons provides a range of legal services nationwide.  Clients range from private individuals and family trusts, through to small businesses, company boards and multi-national organisations.  The practice took the decision to replace its existing solution with one unified system capable of centralising operations and providing universal access to data regardless of fee earner location.  With 286-miles between offices, ease of access to consistent, live data was paramount in the decision.

Gedye & Sons has taken a Proclaim Matter Management solution to cater for all work areas, in addition to ready-to-go workflow modules for its conveyancing and probate teams. To provide a single, consistent solution its offices – and to cater for home workers – the firm has opted for a Hosted Proclaim system.  As part of the implementation, Eclipse carried out a conversion of data from the firm’s incumbent matter management system.  Gedye & Sons is also taking Proclaim’s BigHand integration tool for seamless digital dictation functionality.

Nick Davis, Business Relations Manager at Gedye & Sons, comments:

“Our primary goal for implementing Proclaim was to have one consistent system across all of the practice’s access points.  We wanted to offer our clients instant comment on correspondence regardless of where it was received it or where the fee earner was located at the time.  Proclaim enables our north and south locations to share identical data, so matters that are updated are visible instantly to everyone, no matter their location.  The Hosted solution also allows our higher fee earners the flexibility to work from home when the need arises.  The system we now have ensures that our clients see an already outstanding service enhanced for their benefit – there is complete uniformity of experience despite our disparate geography!”

We are taking part in 4 physical challenges:

• Leeds Half Marathon              12th May                      Candlelighters
• Leeds 10k                               14th July                      Martin House
• Dales Walking Festival           18th August                 Barth’s Syndrome
• Otley Sportive Cycle Event     14th September          Candlelighters

We have teamed up with Virgin Money Giving and created a fundraising page where donating couldn’t be easier. Simply visit our page below, select one of our challenges and choose your donation amount.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EclipseLegal

A big thank you from all at Eclipse and everyone involved with the charities for supporting our fundraising.

This year’s entrants had three themes to choose from:

• Landscape
• Still Life
• Portrait

The interest in the competition has been great with many fine photos being entered. All the entries have been professionally framed and are on display in the client waiting area.

If you can’t make it to Eclipse to view the stunning images for yourself before the competition closes, take a look at the gallery below. And let us know the number of your favourite photo by contacting us.

Alternatively chat to us via twitter at http://twitter.com/Eclipse_Legal

A total of 14 organisations invested in Eclipse’s Proclaim Case and Practice Management solutions, ranging from established high-street practices through to boutique new startups and commercial operations. Among the wins were:

• Global aviation specialist, TES Aviation – the company manages an aircraft portfolio valued in excess of $3billion and will be utilising a Proclaim In-House Legal solution
• A leading north-west practice (currently under an NDA) investing a 6-figure sum in a full Proclaim Practice Management solution in multi-disciplinary work areas
• CBT Clinics, a cognitive behavioural therapy provider, offering niche rehabilitation services for solicitors and insurers. CBT will be using a Proclaim Medico / Rehab system
• Young conveyancing practice, Garnett Wilson, implementing Proclaim Conveyancing to manage an increasing property transaction caseload
• Costs negotiator, County Costs, implementing a Proclaim Costs Drafting solution in readiness for an upswing in business following legislative changes to personal injury law

Eclipse’s Sales Director, Dolores Evelyn, comments:

“We’re seeing huge levels of activity right across the market and from firms of all shapes and sizes. There is a real demand at present from firms that need robust and customer-centric solutions to manage both competitive pressures and legislative hurdles.”

1. Two organisations join Eclipse every single week, investing in our Proclaim solution
2. Two of the UK’s Top 10 law firms use Proclaim
3. We ourselves, as Eclipse, are a Proclaim client! We use a bespoke system in all teams, for a total of 130 staff
4. Half of all new clients take the full Proclaim Practice Management solution (which is Proclaim Case Management integrated with Proclaim Accounts)
5. At time of writing, 21% of all UK Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) use Proclaim. This makes Proclaim the number 1 choice for ABS organisations
6. Our client range is the broadest in the sector, and includes charitable organisations such as Howard League for Penal Reform
7. Eclipse is the largest independently owned legal services software provider (by some margin) in the UK

Good luck to all shortlisted firms – in particular, we are delighted that so many Eclipse clients are included.

Best Use of Technology

• DAC Beachcroft LLP
• i-sign
• LV=

Client Care Initiative

• Ageas Insurance Limited
• LV=
• Papworth Trust Vocational & Medical Rehabilitation
• TopMark Claims Management Ltd

Claims Management Company Team of the Year 1-50 employees

• G4Law Ltd
• S&G Response

Claims Management Company Team of the Year 50+ employees

• Atrium Legal Services
• Winn Assist

Legal Services Team of the Year 1 – 10 Partners

• Express Solicitors
• Jordans Solicitors
• Keoghs
• Roberts Jackson

Legal Services Team of the Year 11+ Partners

• DAC Beachcroft
• Hill Dickinson
• JMW Solicitors
• Stephensons Solicitors LLP

Associated Industries Team of the Year 1 – 10 employees

• Elite Insurance
• mmadigital
• Photofile Ltd

Associated Industries Team of the Year 11 – 100 employees

• HARTECuk
• TopMark Claims Management Ltd
• UKS Medical Diagnostics

Associated Industries team of the Year 100+ employees

• i-sign
• Papworth Trust Vocational & Medical Rehabilitation
• Speed Medical

Online Initiative of the Year

• Neil Hudgell Solicitors
• Professional Solutions Learning & Development
• Speed Medical

Rising Star

• Mark Fenning – Stephensons Solicitors LLP
• Sarah Naylor – Atherton Godfrey
• Kevin Timms – Garden House Solicitors

Outstanding Innovator of the Year – to be announced on the night

Lifetime Achievement Award – to be announced on the night

Visit www.claimsinnovationawards.co.uk for full details of the Claims sector’s premier annual event.

New budgeting requirements will be in place for multi-track cases issued after April 2013. Chief among the requirements is the necessity for practices to accurately track costs against budget, through the life of a case, in order to provide categorised breakdowns of estimated and actual costs.

Eclipse has implemented new budgeting functionality into its Proclaim solution, enabling Proclaim users to budget and manage costs in line with these new legislative requirements. Seamlessly integrated with all existing Proclaim functionality, the Costs Budgeting and Management system will provide for:

• Ongoing alerts and colour-coding for each element of the budget
• A quick-view screen presenting all relevant costs information ‘at-a-glance’ for fee earners and management
• Reporting and analysis across all budget categories on an individual case or global basis

Tracy Blencowe, Business Solutions Director at Eclipse, comments:

“We have created an integrated solution within Proclaim that enables our clients to easily comply with the forthcoming costs changes. The litigation sector is experiencing huge levels of change at the moment, and to compete effectively law firms absolutely must be armed with the right systems and tools. By building costs budgeting and management tools directly into Proclaim, we are negating the need the firms to duplicate work with third party or ‘bolted on’ systems. It’s vitally important that law firms utilise solutions that simplify these new requirements, not create additional administrative overhead.”