DAS Rechtsbijstand (Legal Aid) has the right to good correspondence

About DAS Rechtsbijstand 

DAS stands for accessible professional judicial services, and considers competency and reliability of paramount importance. Some 400 DAS legal experts deal with over 85.000 cases each year. These cases relate to very diverse subjects of a personal and social nature: from (neighbour) disturbances, redundancy cases, disputes over construction permits and money investments to legal issues associated with road traffic accidents. Because of the size of the DAS organization and the volume of the cases handled, DAS possesses extensive judicial knowledge and is capable of spotting judicial trends and developments. DAS wants to put this knowledge at the disposal of the public, both to help people to avoid legal issues and conflicts in the first instance and to facilitate resolution of legal situations once they have arisen.

DAS’s question 

DAS is an insurance company, which means that its services are financed from insurance premiums. This is a completely different scenario to law firms, which charge clients on a time spent basis. Consequently, DAS focuses on delivering high quality services through organisational and process efficiency. This was the motivation for DAS, to automate word-processing and correspondence production. As documents and letters form a substantial part of their service offering, DAS immediately realized that it was here that they could improve their efficiency.

15 years ago DAS started with a system that automated the production of correspondence by having standard texts available which could be changed if necessary. The automated process suited DAS very well but by 2003 the correspondence solution had become outdated. The selection process for a replacement correspondence solution, started with drafting a list of criteria identified by all departments and levels. After an initial review, several suppliers were invited to present their solutions and several reference sites were visited.
Linder Jan Kuijs, ICT & Process Advisor: "Ultimately we chose Aia Software’s ITP because the product is good and above all because of the comfortable feeling we had about the cooperation. We deliberately looked for a partnership with a win-win situation. The first contacts with Aia Software were very pleasant and continued to be that way throughout the project."

Aia Software’s Solution 

Aia Software proposed the implementation of ITP/OnLine Server. This resulted in a centrally maintainable solution, enabling users to access documents through a web-browser. The ITP Solution was implemented in phases and, as with the selection process, all departments and levels were involved. The Recoup and Foreign departments were the first to switch to the new solution by the end of 2004: this was a conscious decision since these departments relatively produce the most correspondence. The rollout of the solution continued in 2005 in the judicial departments of the Arnhem, Rijswijk and Amsterdam offices.
Lindert Jan Kuijs:"The user group consists of mainly legal experts: a very critical audience. The rollout of such a project is always very thrilling but it has been received very well. Most of them definitely see it as a step forward and an added-value to their work."

The result 

Using a browser on the intranet, the users can select a document from a list that will be opened in a standard word processor. Depending on the document type, the user may be able to edit the document. Relation and dossier details can be inserted in advance, into the structured documents and texts, depending on the permissions and procedures that are determined beforehand. But also changing the texts could be one of the options, so for every text block in every document it can be determined which user is entitled to make changes.

For further processing of the documents there are several options such as saving and archiving. Letters can be signed directly by using a digital signature and then printed centrally and sent by the mailroom. Other options are to forward the letter internally for authorisation or to add the letter to the file.
"The fine-tuning of the system always takes some time but we started right away. A good product very often results in an additional wish-list", says Kuijs. "We continue to work with Aia Software. We are very pleased with the cooperation and we are also very confident about a long term relationship."

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