A company with expertise gathered over a quarter of a century is building on its longstanding presence in the UK Wills and Probate market.
Arken.legal, the succession business to DPL Professional, is the company established in May 2018 which brings the Arken Will writing software to a global market, in particular in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Arken, its industry-leading, cloud-based software solution, assists Will writers, private client solicitors, estate and tax planners and accountants with producing documents in the quickest, most accurate and efficient way possible. Its mission is to enable professional advisers to grow their business and be more productive, confident, trusted and secure. Maximising operational efficiency allows professional advisers to deliver the best possible service to their clients.
Head of Operations and Projects, Beverley Freestone said: “We’ve spent the last 25 years developing our software, using our legal experience and continually building on our knowledge of the market and our clients’ requirements.
“Perhaps, more importantly, we understand what it’s like to be ‘on the front line’ when it comes to juggling a busy caseload, complying with increasingly complex regulatory and compliance requirements, meeting customer expectations around speed and quality of delivery and the commercial and financial pressures of making sure that work undertaken is profitable.
“We have a real passion for this industry. Our clients help people with their personal affairs and care deeply about the quality of the advice and service they deliver. Knowing that our solutions play a key part in transforming our clients’ businesses, brings a huge amount of satisfaction to the Arken team and motivates us to continually improve the products.”
Informed by history
Although Arken.legal is a cutting-edge software company, with one ear always to the ground for new developments that could be utilised to improve its software, it’s also a company that is very much informed by a quarter of a century of tradition.
When DPL Professional was acquired by New Zealand-based firm Kōwhiri in 2016, the new owners were quick to recognise the value of the knowledge and relationships built up by the team.
“We immediately recognised the value of the technology that the DPL team had developed over time,” said Dave Newick, who was appointed as Managing Director earlier this year. “However, it was the talent of the DPL team here in the UK that really stood out as exceptional. It’s really important to us that the team, and in particular, key people such as Alistair Cree, Chris Brewer and Beverley Freestone, continue to play a central role in the business.”
Chat to the Arken team for any length of time and you’ll see what Dave means. Tracing the company history in the UK back to 1992, it’s clear that the software, at that time, was genuinely innovative and broke new ground being first to market with Will writing software. This was long before any other developer had thought about creating a system which could auto create documents, provide checklists and ‘safety checks’ for advisers to ensure accuracy and massively speed up transaction times.
Bespoke solutions have been developed and delivered to banks and trust companies in South Africa and Public Trustees across Australia and New Zealand. The bonds formed by the founders during those times have lasted over the years. In the early days, the team would even take turns to sleep whilst developing software through the night! Demonstrations to potential clients – these days possible via remote screen sharing very quickly and easily – involved lugging actual desktop computers and floppy discs across towns and even countries. The experience and knowledge gained long before the days of laptops and the cloud has deeply ingrained a culture of innovation and continual improvement.
Innovation and improvement
Never a business to stand still for long, the team is quick to identify emerging requirements of their customers – keenly listening to feedback for opportunities to enhance the software. The latest version of Arken (4.0) was released in May 2018 and contains many new features including a choice of a single or dual screen view, making it easier for users working on smaller screens. There is also now the ability to password protect documents – a facility which will no doubt become increasingly critical in these days of heightened cyber security risk.
To date, more than 6 million Wills have been written, with a multitude of businesses and advisers across the globe currently, using the system. From the earliest days, the results reported by users were impressive. For example, simple Wills and mirror Wills can be produced twice as quickly as traditional drafting, while complex instructions reported time savings of up to four times. One major South African Trust Company achieved an increase in productivity of 47% while reducing overheads by 38%. From sole practitioners to the largest volume providers, Arken shows demonstrable value.
Beverley Freestone said: “Seeing the reaction of customers once they see the demo and their positive response once they start using the system is really rewarding.”
She puts this down to the combined experience of the team – approaching 175 years between them – and the fact that every new development is delivered either in response to direct feedback from users or its own culture of innovation. “Arken is designed specifically for the private client market and all our developments are made with the busy practitioner in mind,” she said.
The international reach of the company – operating predominantly in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the UK – gives a unique perspective. “Very often we are able to review the best features of how documents are written in different jurisdictions and apply these to a domestic market whilst always operating within the appropriate regulatory framework,” said Arken MD Dave Newick.
What’s next?
Dave Newick continues: “Over the next decade, the world is about to see the largest inter-generational transfer of wealth, yet more than half of all adults don’t have a Will, and for those that do, many are out-of-date. Arken.legal aims to change this, we will help the industry take advantage of and capitalise on this opportunity. There are exciting times ahead!”
This article was submitted to be published by Arken as part of their advertising agreement with the Today’s Wills and Probate. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Wills and Probate.
