Manches takes a chance on Keystone

Manches & Co is installing the controversial Keystone practice management system, making it the fourth UK firm to do so.

Derek Brooke, IT director at Manches, says the firm decided to install Keystone after carrying out a detailed analysis of a number of similar systems, including one provided by a rival company to Keystone, CMS Data.

However, Brooke admitted that the firm had chosen the system with a number of reservations.

Three years ago Ashurst Morris Crisp became the first UK firm to install Keystone, but scrapped it last year, wasting an estimated £1m on the project (The Lawyer, 19 July 1998).

Brooke says: "It was one of the many factors we had to think about.

"We did our homework as to why the system was kicked out and were aware that the company had been through a rights issue recently."

He adds: "None of us thought that Keystone would have won out so emphatically."

Manches has already begun installing the system and expects the project to be completed by the end of this year.

The firm will join DJ Freeman, Masons and Stephenson Harwood all of which have already installed, or are currently in the process of installing, Keystone's practice management system.