Madgwicks Lawyers selects Hubshare as their secure file sharing & collaboration platform
14 May 2019
Make the switch to a client portal
13 June 2019

How Harwood Andrews used personalised client portals to securely share files on Hubshare

Harwood Andrews is the largest regional law firm in Victoria, Australia and is home to a diverse team of 170 talented individuals, including lawyers, special counsel and support personnel. Harwood Andrews is recognised as a progressive legal firm, striving to provide positive commercial solutions to their clients. As testament, they have received numerous nominations and award wins in 2016, 17 and 18 for the Regional / Suburban and State firm of the year by Lawyers Weekly and Australasian Law Awards.
After being awarded the 2017 Lawyers Weekly Regional/ Suburban firm of the year, CEO Andrew Barnes commented, “it was largely due to the implementation of digital products that give our clients a new way to connect with us.” Harwood Andrews had developed a range of online services in 2017, as well as our interactive client portal, Hubshare.

THE OBJECTIVE

Client retention is forever growing increasingly important to law firms and Harwood Andrews wanted to ensure their clients were receiving the best service. Harwood Andrews decided they needed a centralised area where clients could access information and documents whenever suited them. With their current system, clients would have to wait until their lawyers were available to send them a document, which was causing frustrations.
Having a centralised area where they could share documents with clients, would mean greater transparency, thus improving client relationships. They also needed a user-friendly platform, “We have a multi-generational organisation and so needed something that was going to be as easy for our users to create hubs or portals for their clients as possible,” explained Dana Lunn, Manager of Digital Solutions at Harwood Andrews.

THE SOLUTION

Hubshare was selected as their client extranet portal and implemented in April of 2017. By selecting Hubshare, their users could create personalised client portals where they can securely share files and provide clients with up to date information regarding their matter.

CREATING HUBS

Unlike other solutions, little training is required to create hubs, thanks to Hubshare’s user-friendly interface, templates and wizard tools, which takes you step by step through the process. As Dana pointed out, this was very important for Harwood Andrews and their multi-generational organisation. “The wizard is straightforward, they just input the name they want to call the hub, they can personalise it by adding the client’s logo and within a few clicks they can have it created. Then they usually upload whatever documents they have and invite the users who all automatically get a notification saying you’ve been added to this hub,” explains Dana. Not needing to rely on IT to create the hubs, means users save time, no longer waiting for problems to be resolved by IT or for hubs to be created for new clients.
Dana used an example of the litigation team, as she has created a template hub for them with the calendar module, allowing them to manage key dates. “When they need a hub for a client they can easily create one from that template. They can manage multiple hubs, adjust the content that’s on the dashboard and tailor each one to suit their clients.”

BENEFITS OF USING HUBSHARE

With one centralised portal, large files are easily shared with clients and colleagues making it effortless to collaborate.
“For us it eliminates the need to have huge email chains and not know where the most recent version of a document is. Also, the documents only needed to be added to one place and everyone that has access to that hub gets an email notification alerting them to the change,” says Dana.
She continues to discuss the benefit of real-time updates, “A lot of our lawyers get emails purely asking for the latest version of a document because the client can’t find the latest, so it alleviates those sorts of administrative tasks from the lawyer’s plate.”. Real-time updates mean clients and lawyers, have access to the latest version of document or file, providing their clients with complete transparency.

LOOKING FORWARD

Hubshare is constantly developing and expanding our integrations. Dana notes Hubshare’s integration with iManage, which allows users to upload files straight from iManage into Hubshare. They plan on utilising this feature, having just completed their iManage cloud migration.
Dana and the team have exciting plans in the future. “Our next phase is to have the iManage cloud integration with Hubshare, so that we can create hubs direct from iManage. The DocuSign integration, is also on the cards for us.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN SEARCH FOR A CLIENT PORTAL

What do your employees and clients want?

Does it have the right intergrations?

Is it flexible and easy to use?

A collaborative and secure file sharing platform that empowers professionals to collaborate more effectively and efficiently. Hubshare maximises your business’s productivity and helps increase client engagement. Developed with the user in mind, Hubshare is a secure digital workplace portal that enhances user and client engagement through collaborative working, secure file-sharing and project management. Hubshare provides clients and internal teams with a branded and customisable portal, helping businesses to stay better connected whilst boosting productivity.

Are you interested?