All a firm needs is Unity

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Unity is Dye & Durham’s one-stop practice management software, but with a commitment to invest tens of millions in R&D this year, it’s just the beginning

TECHNOLOGY ISN'T what sets a law firm apart from its competitors. Not exactly. The challenge most firms – including the small and mid-sized firms that make up 97 percent of the Canadian market – have isn’t whether they will integrate tech into their practice; it’s knowing which technologies to choose, and how to deploy them. To find the perfect solutions, firms will often mix and match products from various vendors, each of which is capable of doing some part of the job – but not the whole. To add to the inconvenience, tools from different vendors rarely integrate seamlessly with one another. This lack of interoperability can make it difficult to get a clear picture of what’s going on inside their own firms and see what their customers’ needs are, all while adding unnecessary risk with more credentials and passwords to manage and more sensitive information diffused throughout the organization. A 360-degree approach to practice management would correct this problem. It’s why Dye & Durham has invested so much in Unity – and will continue to invest tens of millions in its product suite over the next year: to create a single platform that provides legal professionals and firms with all the tools they need to grow with less effort, in one place.

Dye & Durham is one of the world’s most trusted providers of mission-critical software for legal, financial, and business professionals. We provide premier practice management solutions empowering legal professionals every day, deliver vital data insights to support critical corporate transactions, and enable the essential payments infrastructure trusted by government and financial institutions.

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“From client intake to cloud-based legal document storage, and from matter and case management to practice and trust accounting, we are constantly evolving the Unity platform”

David Nash, Dye & Durham

“Put simply, 360 degrees is looking around the complete firm and solving the many questions they may face each day: What does my business need in this moment? What's on my docket? And what do I need next week, next month? How am I going to grow?” says David Nash, Dye & Durham’s chief product officer. “And for small businesses, it’s especially important to have a well-rounded, easy-to-use suite of capabilities because, unlike large law where they have tons of people, tons of purpose-built proprietary, fully customized products, Unity has to be the thing that is natural to use because they’re going to live in Unity all day long.” “From client intake to cloud-based legal document storage, and from matter and case management to practice and trust accounting, we are constantly evolving the Unity platform to

incorporate new capabilities that will make life easier for our customers and help them better serve their own clients,” Nash explains. “This fall, we will be adding accounting and wills capabilities directly in Unity. And we’ll launch Unity in British Columbia before the end of the year, bringing complete practice management to legal professionals on the West Coast for the first time.”

“We’re an agile organization, meaning we don’t go lock ourselves away for three years and then, you know, roll out new products and say, ‘Here it is, I hope you like it!’” Nash says. “We’re in what we call continuous discovery. We will also introduce software pretty much continuously, a number of new capabilities almost nonstop over the next several months.” One of the first introductions this fall will be the Unity global platform, a one-stop approach for Dye & Durham customers to quickly access the solutions they need in one destination. Users of Unity® Practice Management, Unity® Accounting, eCore, Fast Company, and Lender Centre will be able to gain access to every solution they need with a single log-in at dyedurham.ca. “We’re bringing the user experience together to reduce friction for our customers, and to make it easier for

them to get the services they need from us with unmatched ease, transparency, privacy, and security,” says Nash. The Unity global platform will make it easier for customers using multiple Dye & Durham solutions to stay on top of their monthly billing with increased transparency and detail. The new unified billing portal will make it easier for customers with multiple products and/or accounts to access and understand their disbursements, transact, and plan each month. Unity® Accounting will make reconciling accounts simpler by providing customers with a comprehensive cloud-based legal accounting platform that includes practice and trust accounting, which should reduce incidents of dropped disbursables and allow firms to receive immediate payments with digital invoicing and one-click credit card payments. “The challenges firms have today really are not about the technology. The technology should be invisible. Technology is a means to an end. You’re not going to hear us talking about Technology X or Y or Z. But we will talk again and again about how Unity is going to help our customers accelerate their ability to delight their clients and grow their businesses.”

Published 29 Sep 2023

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“We’re in what we call continuous discovery. We will also introduce software pretty much continuously, a number of new capabilities almost nonstop over the next several months”

David Nash, Dye & Durham

After decades providing solutions for law firms around the world – with Canada as its home base, it is also helping firms thrive in the UK and Ireland, Australia, and South Africa – Dye & Durham knows how law firms operate. “They are, first and foremost, businesses. They aren’t just lawyers,” Nash says. “By listening to our customers, we understand that these companies want to grow; they’re looking for other revenue streams and looking for better ways to serve their clients.”

Nash points to the example of wills. “If you’re a small business, you know a lot of your clients who are buying or selling property with you are probably also interested in wills, or executing an estate if they have one. These firms may not do a lot of wills today, either because of a lack of experience or because it can be cost-prohibitive for them to do so. So, how can we help them better serve their clients? And how can we really help them do high-quality wills?” This, he says, is where Dye and Durham’s investment in AI will help set firms apart. The company will provide powerful will-building capabilities directly in Unity later this fall and is developing AI tools that will drastically reduce the time it takes to create a will. “It will help lawyers get their first pencil done in minutes. We can accelerate that initial work that might take a paralegal several days.” The new capabilities will also allow legal professionals to create content specific to each individual lawyer’s voice, draft Power of Attorney documents, and create merged, dual, and mirror wills in minutes instead of hours. This should significantly reduce the amount of time necessary to create and update wills; make it easier to capture, store, and share those wills when needed; and allow law firms to increase the revenue they derive from their Wills and Estates practices – all while better serving their clients.

Unity by the numbers

More than 2,500 firms across Canada have already migrated from other solutions to Unity More than 15,000 customers log in to Unity daily Unity users create more than 60,000 documents in the solution daily Over 2 million real estate transactions have been processed through Unity to date Almost 600,000 real estate transactions have been processed through Unity in the past 12 months alone

Unity by the numbers

content specific to each individual lawyer’s voice, draft Power of Attorney documents, and create merged, dual, and mirror wills in minutes instead of hours. This should significantly reduce the amount of time necessary to create and update wills; make it easier to capture, store, and share those wills when needed; and allow law firms to increase the revenue they derive from their Wills and Estates practices – all while better serving their clients.