Request for Information - Legal Practice Management System

Legal Services Branch Responsibility The Ministry of Attorney General, Legal Services Branch (LSB) is requesting information from suppliers as set out in section 1.3. The LSB supports the Attorney General as the legal advisor to the government of British Columbia. LSB ensures that the administration of public affairs is carried out in accordance with the law. LSB’s mission is to provide excellent, innovative, timely, practical, and cost effective legal and legislative services to the government of British Columbia in accordance with the Attorney General Act, RSBC 1996, c 22. LSB’s responsibilities are delivered through four main divisions, split geographically between Victoria and Vancouver:Solicitor services, which advises government agencies on lawful operation, risk reduction, interpretation of legislation and treaties; and with drafting, negotiating, interpreting and enforcing agreements. Barrister services, which represents the government in litigation before courts and tribunals

and advises ministries on strategic approaches to litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Legislative services, which drafts regulations and legislation. Business operations, which provides management and infrastructure to support the branch.Approximate Number of Legal Counsel (Barristers and Solicitors)450Approximate Number of Legal Professional Staff, Paralegals, and Legal Assistants200Approximate Number of Business Operations Staff, IT support, Finance and Records staff.55Approximate Total Staff705 Background The purpose of this RFI is to gather information that may be useful to the Ministry with respect to a potential future procurement. In particular, this RFI is to:Determine market interest; Develop a better understanding of software offerings available, and the expertise, approaches and strategies of service providers to meet our described business needs and requirements; Solicit industry knowledge and expertise with regard to best practices; Obtain information on innovative approaches and strategies; and Obtain information on pricing models and determine high level pricing for budgetary purposes.This RFI is not: (i) a tender notice or call for tenders; (ii) a notice of intended procurement; or (iii) a notice of planned procurement.LSB operates in a highly controlled windows environment with office 365 with e5 license. We operate under governments security schedules that are publicly available here ( https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/services-for-government/information-management-technology/information-security/c...).The Current System is intended as the primary legal records storage location to manage client case information, including contact information, advice and documents provided to clients, client communications including email, letters, messages, voicemail records, and other client case-related information.The Current System is used within LSB to facilitate compliance requirements such as:Document retention policies, File auditing, Standardized court forms, Compliance with practice guidelines from the Law Society of British Columbia, and Managing critical litigation dates, correspondence, and documents.The Current System is also used for timekeeping and is integrated with other commercial and custom software to support LSB’s cost recovery model by generating invoices, managing client billing and generating financial reports.At present, Knowledge Management is handled through a SharePoint based solution that is not integrated to the Current System. LSB generates around 1500 legal documents of branch-wide significance per year. An integrated Knowledge Management and Practice Management system is preferable. Information Sought LSB is seeking information on Practice Management technologies and solutions that can optimize the delivery of legal services with improved efficiency and effectiveness.Please provide the following information in a Response: software offerings available, and the expertise, approaches and strategies to meet the described business needs and requirements; innovative approaches and strategies that your solution offers to meet our business requirements; describe how vendors handle configuration, customization, or workflow modifications; pricing model(s) for solutions (e.g., per seat model, license types, different modules, etc.); for the Province’s budgetary purposes, based on the information provided in this RFI (such as users set out in section 1.1) and assuming a term of one year: include a high-level price range to implement a net new solution (less than $500K; between $500K and1MIL; between $1-$2 MIL; between $2-$3 MIL; between $3-$4 MIL; between $4-$5 MIL greater than $5 MIL) describe the average time frame of net new solution implementation; include a high-level price range of the per seat yearly subscription fees to access and use or licence the solution, or provide an alternative that fits your model (less than $500/seat, between $500 - $1K/seat; between $1-$2K/seat, between $2-$3K/seat, over $3K/seat ); describe what is included in the subscription fee such as configuration and maintenance and support, and access to any help desk services, and any other services; include a high-level price range of yearly support and maintenance if applicable (less than $200K; between $200K and $500K; between $500K and $1MIL; between $1-$2 MIL; over $2 MIL) describe any additional or optional services that you have identified that may assist with meeting the business needs, and if so, please describe the pricing model as it relates to those additional or optional services. High level Requirements Solutions could take many forms, including on-premises or some variation or combination of cloud; SaaS, IaaS, PaaS. The Province is interested in solutions that could meet all the requirements listed below, or only partially meet the requirements but allow for integrations to other solutions that could fulfil the missing requirements. Conflict Management A central system or process that handles conflicts; restricting access to individuals that have identified conflict, across systems/modules Practice Management Capabilities A central system of matters, cases, and projects. Stores relevant information pertaining to each matter. A central system to store information for clients, courts, related parties, and other contacts. Legal Workflow Automation (e.g., task, calendaring, appointment, or automated workflows) Create, and assign tasks and set deadlines. Document Generation, automated preparation and population of specific court documents and forms. Document Management Capabilities Document and email storage (via Outlook and MS Office integration). Allow documents to be tagged or categorized into customizable taxonomy. Advanced search functions (e.g., full text, document content searching, Boolean, natural language, proximity, faceted). Document comparison capabilities. Document proofreading capabilities. Version management. Document collaboration capabilities. Knowledge Management Capabilities Store knowledge documents (ex. litigation form templates and precedents, memoranda, opinions, and non-sensitive briefing notes). Allows custom metadata to be applied to documents and edited by Knowledge Management administrators. Allows users to search and/or browse for knowledge product, using the same advanced search functionality as the document management capabilities. Includes a gatekeeping/curating features that holds documents for review before being published by administrator. Prevent users from editing an original document saved as knowledge document. Sharing capabilities. Links to, or ability to store training and policy documents. Timekeeping Track billable time and related expenses for a particular client or matter. Enable timekeepers to easily capture billable time. Integration services or Open API The ability to pull data for reporting and to support custom internal systems, through an open Application Programming Interface (API) or provision of custom build API services. An open API (Application Program Interface), allowing LSB or third parties to develop integrations with the software. If offering is not an all-in-one solution, describe possible customization options available to meet unmet requirements. Contract duration Refer to the description above for full details. Trade agreements Please refer to tender description or tender documents Contracting organization Organization Legal Services Branch Email lsb.projects@gov.bc.ca