About us is our way to introduce ourselves and our work and our business with a mission we’re proud of and want to describe.
Why eLawX was developed?
In 2005 we helped a law firm become purely electronic in its systems and procedures.
Soon however, we realised that the legal market as far as lawyers were concerned, in addition to clients, just was not ready to implement these radical changes. The technology had not advanced to a sufficient degree. Lawyers, as creatures of habit, were used to receiving paper faxes and hard copies of files. Signing documents electronically was at a nascent stage. There was a sense that storage was inadequate to preserve the contents of files. It was perceived as risky.
More significantly, the benefits were not known because the technology was largely non-existent. There was no conception of being able to work on files from a distance or in a group simultaneously or by video conferencing. In theory, these ideas were possible but the availability of technology meant combining various tools into a system. Largely, work in progress was emailed back and forth. I remember in 2010 working on a class action and sending materials back and forth, to and fro, in starts and stops, to another lawyer.
Even for lawyers themselves, if we could strike an arrangement with a firm or firms to work on files together, it was largely parsed out where one of the lawyers did all the work. The materials would then be revised. Ad nauseam.
eLawX is borne of the conviction that we can do much better work at more affordable rates, with assistance from lawyers and others at a distance because it is just as easy to work with a lawyer who is our neighbour as it is to work with a lawyer in a remote location when technology is employed.
Benefits clients and customers:
Working this way benefits our clients and customers because we can save huge amounts on overhead, in particular by using videoconferencing. Significantly, we can also get the work done much quicker and avoid even local travel.
Technology exists where we can revise documents simultaneously even with the client and customer:
We can make revisions with multiple lawyers working on a file where every change appears to all of us at the same time in a different colour so we know which lawyer makes what change as it happens. We can then comment next to the change if we need to. Or explain it. Or reference it. Or delete it. Or develop it. Or mark it for a research point.
We follow an adage and, that is, that all the work that is done has to be consistent with the principle that litigation in legal affairs is always on the horizon. Contractual relationships break down. Lifelong partners and family members sue one another. Employment relationships end.
I often hear two siblings or a parent and child who famously declared that on starting some now successful enterprise the family believed it did not need an agreement. I pick up those files at the litigation stage. I have had best friends litigate for years, two pharma executives, while the spouses remain friends. I once had a very, very well-known lawyer state (when divorce was imminent and I asked for a copy) that he had actually torn up the ante-nuptial agreement because his then new wife-to-be was crying and saying he did not need it and how it would change everything. I thought the genius was joking before I decided not to do the case. I figured I would not take on clients who exercise such poor judgement in their personal affairs. I have come to learn that we all, including myself, exercise poor judgement in our personal affairs. He ended up staying married and hated how his life turned out till the day he died.
Relationships break down all the time.
Our first adage is: treat all work as if it will become the subject of protracted and expensive litigation if we mess up and if we do not do proper due diligence and risk management.
Our second adage is: think in terms of how this file will be ultimately litigated even if it seems like the most unlikely thing in the world. Just do not mess up but protect the client at all costs.
Thanks for being part of this!!
