Dev Smith Nguyen Lawyers is one of Australia’s most trusted law firms. They continue to deliver expert services backed by innovative new ways of helping their clients.

Co-founder Phuc Vinh Ngo has been instrumental in the development of their new platform iLawyer which has changed the way in which legal services can be accessed. The use of online tools to improve the lives of clients is just one of the reasons Dev Smith Nguyen Lawyers are emerging as one of the key law firms in Australia.

Hi Phuc Vinh, can you start by telling us a bit about yourself?

I’m a businessman, I like to do business in the information technology field.

When did you found Dev Smith Nguyen Lawyers?

With my business partner, Peter Do, we founded Dev Smith Nguyen Lawyers in January 2019. I created the business and took on the role of marketing and IT director. Dev Smith Nguyen Lawyers is an Australian law firm, so, I have been trying to satisfy our clients by delivering them the most beneficial legal advice and in the most convenient way. I achieve this by applying IT solutions such as Cloud storages, online booking and payment, collaborative tools, communication tools and more both internally and externally to the company.

What do you like most about the business?

Our staff are young and enthusiastic, most of them are from well-known universities and are experienced solicitors. With young staff, learning and applying new things is always easier. We have staff meetings weekly to discuss tasks, difficulties, share experiences, or learn new things. This makes it very easy for me to learn from them and clients even though I’m not a solicitor. As the marketing and IT director, I need to clearly understand my clients and their issues when they find and work with us and analyse the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of the business. Then, my mission is to find the best way to satisfy customers and improve my firm.

Can you explain your new platform iLawyer to us? How does it work?

I have been building the iLawyer platform to allow customers to self-book an appointment with our solicitors or lawyers. The appointments can be online or in the office and customers can choose their most convenient time and consult with us anywhere. They can also pay directly online for legal advice. The appointments will be automatically confirmed via email or SMS message with all relevant information. If customers choose to go online, all they need is their web browser, they do not need to install any software on their computer. They can use mobile devices to join appointments as well.

For lawyers or solicitors, it’s very easy for them to follow and conduct a legal meeting. All bookings will be automatically synced across their calendars and devices, with their next available time for a booking listed and the initial information about the client’s legal problems and the advice they may need. During an online appointment, sharing documents and inviting other people to join is also allowed. All information relating to the appointment will be encoded and secured.

The way to book legal advice via iLawyer is as simple as creating an event in a calendar (Google calendar for example), all we need to know is a verified email and mobile number.

You can see how it work below:

What are the main benefits of this new platform?

As mentioned, clients can self-book their appointment anytime and anywhere. All appointments are scheduled and synced according to the available times of our solicitors. This reduces a lot of business operating costs and also significantly reduces legal costs for our clients, making it less stressful when finding legal advice.

Another benefit is, of course, clients can be anywhere, we even have customers from overseas. Traditionally, people often find legal advice near their location but with iLawyer, you can have legal advice anywhere around the world.

On the other hand, the iLawyer platform allows customers to give reviews and ratings after each service. This will help new customers in deciding whether to go ahead with us because they can easily see reviews from previous customers, the quality of our services, how we deliver legal advice, whether previous customers are happy or not, etc.

How is it making a difference in the way you deliver your services?

We try to deliver what is best for our clients, most people go to meet solicitors to solve their problems. In many legal cases, time and cost are a heavy burden for people. Thus, we try to organise our law firm as a friendly firm with professional staff that are here to help our clients feel comfortable whenever they work with us.

We also have a rating and review system that can be seen by the public. This way, our staff are always doing their best when at work, when delivering legal services, when dealing with complaints from clients, and when sharing experiences. This system will help people to find the right legal services for their case.

Over the last year, we have been living with the Corona virus pandemic and it has thrown a lot of challenges to us as individuals, families, businesses, communities, or even as a country. “Social distancing” meant that all of us had to stay at home. As you know, most businesses have to find new ways to work from a distance to deliver their products or services. Thus, our efforts and investments in IT have been constantly changing. With the new iLawyer platform, we have helped a lot of clients find legal advice during lockdown. We hope we can continue to do our bit to help our community.

Thank you Phuc Vinh for your time!
You can follow up with Phuc Vinh Ngo at https://devsmithnguyen.com.au or visit iLawyer platform here.