Berensons treads carefully with system upgrade

Fennell Betson reports

Kensington-based Berensons, the legal practice run by Conquest legal network chair Richard Berenson, has made a modest u12,000 investment in its IT system.

The aim was to get better results from its existing system. Berenson says the firm did not want to spend heavily on IT as it was waiting to see the outcome of the debate on conveyancing. "This will require radical changes to our software and systems," he says.

A number of firms are holding off spending significant amounts until the future of conveyancing is known, he says.

The interim installation of new hardware and software purchase from Sanderson GA was a move to a more open system, says the supplier's Allan Hodkinson. "But Berensons wanted more functionality with more information available," he says.

One software package was upgraded and all the data was successfully transferred to the new platform. This means users have data available that they had not been able to access previously.

Hodkinson says firms are seeking "more functionality from their installations" and are "mixing and matching" software from different systems.