Spotlight on…

On the back of a 6th award-win for Keoghs in the last year, we asked Partner and Innovation Director, Dene Rowe, to reflect on what makes a good insurance law firm.

1) What do you think insurers value most from their law firms?

Quality services and solutions to legal challenges, problems and opportunities they face on a daily basis. They want their law firms to be ‘on the same page’ as them, speaking their language and going the extra mile.

2) What have been the biggest changes in the way Keoghs delivers its services to clients over the last few years?

For us, the combination of reforms and technological change has influenced the way in which we deliver a number of our services. In effect, reforms have been a driving force, whilst embracing technology has meant that automation and lean processing has provided the opportunity to deliver efficiency. Data is big, not only to provide basic management information for our clients but now there is more science, predictive analytics and an increasing focus as to what insight data can bring to improve results.

3) How is technology changing the way Keoghs meets client needs? And which areas will be most affected by new tech?

Keoghs has always recognized that technology is a crucial element in meeting client needs. We invest significantly in technology and indeed create our own software solutions for case, document and process management, artificial intelligence and the like. We are masters of our own destiny in terms of technology and this means that we can constantly evolve our tech stack to meet client needs as they adapt. AI is key in the industry and we embrace this tech as we see the significant benefit that can be realised from automation opportunities. Administration, process waste, repetitive tasks and data-led strategies are likely to be most impacted by tech in the coming months and years as the rest of the law firm community realise that the law industry is no different to other knowledge industries and benefits from efficient process management.

4) How does Keoghs differentiate its offering?

This is relatively straightforward to articulate:

1. Our structure is focused on us retaining profit to invest in the business rather than draw out all profits at the end of the year.
2. Keep focused – we are just a one-industry law firm – all we do is serve the insurance industry. We are also just UK based. A UK based insurance specialist.
3. We have our own software development team who have created our own case management system (Tracker) and AI system (Lauri) along with many other innovations for clients. This gives us the ability to build the technology we need as a firm and not rely on what off the shelf packages are able to deliver.
4. We do things differently. First law firm to create a counter-fraud team, first to bring a defendant AI lawyer etc.
5. Provide the end to end solution with the same quality approach.

5) What innovation have you introduced that has added the most value?

In recent times we have launched a number of innovations that have been recognized as having added value and indeed a number have been recognized in the industry through awards.  Perhaps the most recent launch of Lauri, the first AI defendant lawyer, is the one that springs to mind. The only firm to do this, we have been able to reduce our clients’ legal spend through automation and additionally save their own business further cost by making parts of the claim process automated.

The pleasing thing in very recent times is that one client has mentioned our innovation in their Q1 report to the City as having saved them a specific amount of money and time. When a client is referencing your services in such a positive vein in such a communication then it is indeed a proud moment.