Background
Legal Aid NSW helps people with their legal problems. Legal services include legal advice, help at court and family dispute resolution, etc. Legal Aid helps in most areas of Criminal law, Family law and Civil law. The business vision is to move to a solution that focuses with the client as a single primary entity. Where the client has Problems (known within Legal Aid as Matters), these are addressed through Services.
With an aim to improve the management of its clients, matters and services, Legal Aid wanted to have a platform created that assisted its front line staff in addressing the problems of the clients, a platform that fully supported a digital online approach with a graceful transition from the current paper based manual processes over time, and is accessible over the web, in regional and remote locations where data bandwidth is limited (or non-existent), and still delivers the client focus through the front-line staff.
- 25+ Offices, 250+ Outreach Locations, 1200+ Staff Logins
- 3 Main Practice Areas (Criminal Law, Family Law, Civil Law)
- 1,000,000+ Clients, 5,000,000+ Cases
Business Challenges
The current tool (CASES) provided to front line staff was not effective at assisting staff to perform their day-to-day activities.
- The tool has limited integration to back-end systems and data repositories
- The tool is only available as a desktop application, and so only available out of office through a Citrix proxy (requiring a VPN)
- The tool is complex to use, that has led the staff to develop manual work arounds and deal with Client problems using predominantly paper-based processes.
Reflecting on these challenges, Legal Aid NSW identified the need to streamline the systems used and capture legal and other client services by replacing the CASES tool with PEGA based CCMS application.
Engagement Overview
- Duration: 3+ years (since 2018)
- Peak Team Size: 25+ Offshore and 4+ Onshore
- Execution Model: T&M and Fixed Bid
Solution
Client and Case Management System (CCMS)
The CCMS application was designed to decommission case management system (CASES) and replace it with a more client-focused, modern and efficient client and case management system. Legal Aid NSW improved the management of its clients, matters and services after delivering this app in production. It is an easy to use, client-centric solution for all staff, covering Client Management, Matter and Service Management, Document Management, Office Management, Transitioning to a paper-light office, Providing access across all offices, outreach locations, and courts via mobile / hybrid devices.
Complaint Management System (CMS)
CMS application was designed to capture compliments or complaints from external practitioners only. Compliment is any expression of praise or thanks from a client or external party about Legal Aid, a Legal Aid staff member, an outcome or other. It includes compliments received at court, on outreach, in person, over the phone or email etc.
Back Up Duty Scheme Work Allocation System (BUDSAS)
BUDSAS application was designed to allocate backup lawyers (private practitioners) when Legal Aid is unable to fulfil a need with internal resources. Legal Aid staff will raise an offer and system will then allow an equitable distribution of the available private practitioner work in a manner that simplifies the effort required by Legal Aid staff.
Law Access Connect System (LACS)
Key objective of this Law Access Connect application was to decommission Siebel, transition from DCJ technical space to Legal Aid tech space and to overcome all existing legacy system problem statements. This Pega application was designed for NSW public to connect to Legal Aid Law Access team through toll free phone channel to acquire oral advice or legal assistance by providing an appointment facility with inhouse practitioners based on available clinics. This application provides interaction management in Pega CS framework. With this, NSW public gets legal assistance in terms of Info Case, Fulfilment Case, Graffiti Case, General Case with the interface with CCMS application for Client, Matter and Service Management.
Solution Tenets
- System access to a large variety of user groups
- Web, Email and SMS channels
- Rich dashboard capability for the users
- Multiple integrations: Pega BIX, Outlook, SSO, MS Azure etc.
- Layer cake architecture with enterprise layer hosting most of the components to be used by different implementation layer applications
Key Achievements & Volumetrics
- Total Releases in Production: 60+
- Key Milestones: 6 (till April 2022)
- Released 4 applications
- Coforge BAU team supporting 3 applications in production
- Carried out Pega version upgrade from 7.4 to 8.5
- Onboarded:
- Serving 989611+ Clients:
- Migrated:
- Services per year
Benefits
The Client and Case Management Solution built in Pega helped Legal Aid NSW users to view Client 360-degree information along with associated matter(s), service(s) & task(s). The benefits garnered are,
- CCMS user is processing 500+ services per day (increased productivity from ~40% to 85%) after going live in Feb’20.
- Enhanced customer User Experience with easy GUI, automated notifications and decision systems increasing citizen participation
- Productivity increased from 60% to 95% with all solicitors and private practitioners
- Serving 1.5+ Million Clients: Increased the productivity of client's management from 60 to 80% after deploying the Client Appointment Booking System module (Intake & CABS)
- Platform rationalization & cost to change reduced more than 40% due to configurable low code platform
