Software development for law firms
Several of our largest and longest standing clients are international law firms. We build the systems they rely on: secure client and matter portals, internal workflow tools, document exchange platforms, and bespoke software that handles complex determinations where the output has real legal and financial consequence.
We are a B Corp certified software development agency based in Cheltenham, working in .NET. We are not a legal software product vendor and we do not sell a platform you have to adopt. We build what your firm actually needs, integrated with the systems you already run.
What we build
Legal work creates software requirements that general business systems do not. Matter-level access control, audit trails that stand up to scrutiny, confidentiality obligations that shape the architecture rather than sit on top of it, and integration with practice management systems that were never designed to be integrated with. These are the problems we work on.
Secure client and matter portals
Client portals that give clients secure access to their matters, documents and case progress, with permissions controlled at matter level rather than firm level. Built to integrate with your existing practice management system rather than replace it, so partners and fee earners keep working in the tools they already use.
Internal systems and workflow tools
Internal platforms that reflect how your firm actually works. Matter workflow, task and deadline management, reporting for practice heads, and tools built for specific teams whose requirements do not fit a general system. Firms of a certain size accumulate processes that no off the shelf product supports properly. This is what we build instead.
Document management and secure exchange
Secure document exchange between the firm, clients and third parties, with version control, access logging and a full audit trail. Built for the reality that legal documents move between many parties, that who saw what and when matters, and that email is not an acceptable channel for most of it.
Practice management integration
Most firms already run a practice management system and are not looking to replace it. We build integrations that connect new systems to what is already there, so data flows properly and fee earners are not entering the same information twice. This is often the hardest part of a legal software project and it is work we do regularly.
Determination and compliance systems
Software that produces an answer someone will rely on. We have built systems that determine tax status against complex and changing rules, where the logic has to be correct, auditable and explainable, and where the firm is standing behind the result. This is a different kind of software project from a document portal, and it requires a different level of rigour in how the rules are modelled, tested and validated with the people who understand them.
Secure web development and design
Alongside internal systems, we design and build the public facing sites that sit in front of them. For a law firm, that means a site that reflects the seniority of the practice, performs properly, and meets the security standards your IT function expects. It also means a site your marketing team can update without needing a developer for routine changes.
Where a firm needs both, the advantage of a single partner is that the public site and the secure systems behind it are designed to work together. Client onboarding, secure enquiry handling and portal access are part of the same considered journey rather than three systems bolted together.
We build on Umbraco, an open source .NET content management system, which gives firms full control over their content without licence fees and without the constraints of a proprietary platform.
We understand how law firms work
Software projects in law firms are not like software projects elsewhere, and most of the difference is structural rather than technical.
Decisions involve more people. A project may be sponsored by an IT director, funded through a management committee, and depend on the cooperation of practice heads whose teams will use it daily. Partners are owners of the business as well as its senior practitioners, which means their input carries weight throughout, not only at approval. We are used to working with that, and to presenting the same project appropriately to a technical audience, a commercial one and a group of senior partners whose priority is that it does not disrupt fee earning work.
Requirements differ sharply between practice areas. What a corporate team needs from a matter system bears little resemblance to what a private client or litigation team needs. A system designed only around one department tends to be resisted by the others. We scope for that from the start rather than discovering it during rollout.
Fee earner time is the firm's product. Any process that adds minutes to a fee earner's day will be abandoned regardless of how well it is built. We design around that constraint rather than treating adoption as a training problem.
And we work alongside your existing IT and information security functions rather than around them. Most firms of any size have established security requirements, penetration testing regimes and infrastructure standards. We expect to meet them, and we are comfortable with the review process that comes with it.
Security and confidentiality
Client confidentiality is not a feature to be added to legal software. It determines how the system is built.
In practice that means access control designed at matter level, so that people see only the matters they are entitled to see, including where information barriers are in place. It means audit trails that record who accessed what and when, in a form that can be produced if it is ever needed. It means considering data residency where a firm operates across jurisdictions with differing requirements. And it means secure authentication that integrates with whatever identity system the firm already uses, rather than creating another set of credentials.
We build on .NET, a platform with a strong security track record and a mature ecosystem, and we expect our work to be reviewed by your own security function or an external tester. That is a normal part of a legal software project and we plan for it. We are also Cyber Essentials certified.
Why law firms choose 16i
Experience with international firms
Several of our largest clients are international law firms, and some of those relationships span many years. We understand multi jurisdiction requirements, distributed teams and the governance that comes with a firm of that scale.
We build, we do not sell a platform
We have no product to protect. That means we can recommend an off the shelf system where one genuinely fits, and build only where building is the better answer. Firms tell us this is an unusual conversation to have with a supplier.
Long term relationships
Most of our client relationships are measured in years rather than projects. Legal systems evolve as the firm does, and we are set up to support and develop them over time rather than build once and move on.
B Corp certified
We are certified as a B Corporation, which means we are independently assessed against standards covering how we treat our people, our clients and our impact. For firms with their own responsible business commitments, that alignment matters in supplier selection.
How a project starts
Most legal software projects begin with a discovery phase rather than a proposal. We spend time with the people who will use the system, understand how the work currently moves through the firm, and establish what the software actually needs to do before anyone estimates what it will cost.
For larger systems we often recommend scoping an initial phase that proves the core workflow with a defined group of users before committing to a full build. That approach reduces risk considerably and gives the firm something real to evaluate before the larger investment is made.
An initial conversation is free and carries no obligation. If a bespoke build is not the right answer for your firm, we will say so.
Talk to us about your firm's systems
If your firm is considering a client portal, an internal system, a practice management integration or a bespoke build, we would welcome a conversation. No obligation, and no assumption that building is the right answer.