History of Epoq
Epoq were a very early entrant into the Legal Services market, and have been providing services and solutions to the sector for over 14 years. During that time we have gained an impressive list of institutional clients (featuring some of the UK's largest insurance, legal and financial institutions) and a hard won reputation for innovation and excellence. Here are some of the notable milestones in Epoq's history:
1994: Epoq is founded as a software development company by Grahame Cohen, with the goal of addressing a gap in the legal market by using emerging technologies to streamline professional processes within the legal profession.
1996: Following the realisation that no technology exists that enables on-demand, cost-effective production of repetitive legal documents, solicitor Richard Cohen - Grahame's brother - joins Epoq as joint CEO and as the company authority on legal content and direction.
1997: Epoq launches Desktop Lawyer® as a hard-coded application on CD-ROM, providing a method of generating professional legal documents on the PC platform. Desktop Lawyer® becomes a front cover story on all the major computing publications, and garners a very positive response from both editorial review staff and the legal industry. With the internet revolution beginning to gather pace, Epoq starts work on a roadmap for delivering these services online in a more accessible, flexible manner.
1998: The first version of Epoq's intelligent interview and document-creation software, Rapidocs®, is launched. Considered ground-breaking for the time, the product could be used directly by consumers, offered live document text, and was designed with web-integration foremost in mind. This first iteration paved the way for a vast array of improvements and updates, and later evolutions of the Rapidocs® document creation platform still remain central to all the services and solutions that Epoq offers today.
1999: The internet-based version of the Desktop Lawyer® application launches, now upgraded from a hard-coded application in order to utilise new Rapidocs® technology. This marks the first time that web-enabled authoring and delivery of legal documents is made available to the public.
2000: Epoq partners with Freeserve, the first mass-market ISP in the UK, to offer their customers free use of parts of the Desktop Lawyer® software. Desktop Lawyer® receives vast media coverage as a result, as it represents the first mass usage of legal services online.
2001: Epoq launches their next venture, Law Assure® - the first ever subscription-based legal services product. This is provided in conjunction with First Assist, a company providing telephone based legal support, which means that customers creating legal content from Epoq's services can enjoy the additional reassurance of having their documents checked by a legal team. In the same year, the ongoing drive to continually improve the Rapidocs® technology platform reaches a new milestone, as full web functionality is made available with the launch of Rapidocs® 2.
2002: As internet use enters the mainstream, Epoq finalises its first major institutional deal by providing More Th>n with a fully re-branded service for their policy holders, More Th>n Legal Services. This represents the first entry of a large, consumer-facing insurance brand into the legal services market, and is an early indicator of how much the market is set to change, suggesting a shift towards the pro-active use of insurance products.
2003: Leading legal publisher, Sweet and Maxwell, decide to utilise Rapidocs® technology to power their "White Book" service, used to provide professional court forms for solicitors and barristers alike – underlining both the validity of Epoq's platform and the quality of the legal content it can offer.
2005: Epoq's Legal Contact Centre System (ELCCS) is launched. This system provides end-to-end process management for suppliers who wish to offer services for the creation of legal documents – starting with a platform for origination that can be accessed online or by phone, through to professional legal review and delivery of the finished article to the consumer.
2006: Using Epoq technology, Halifax provides Halifax Legal Solutions, a subscription-based web service offering legal document drafting services to consumers. This proves to be a significant milestone, not only as it represents the first move by a major public-facing financial brand into the legal services market, but also because the positive reaction to the service by consumers and press alike serves as a strong indicator of how ready the market is for products of this nature...and how the landscape for the legal services market is going to change.
2007: Epoq technology is used to provide another service from a major financial institution: NatWest Risk Remedy is released, targeted at small businesses and providing a framework for legal documentation and support. Furthermore, Epoq announce partnerships with major LEI providers DAS and Allianz to provide the consumer-targeted DAS Householdlaw and the business-targeted Allianz Legal Online respectively.
2008: Epoq launches the UK's largest "virtual" law firm, MyLawyer.co.uk, provided by Epoq in partnership with top firms from the UK's legal 500. The service offers bespoke document drafting services to the public, with the reassurance of review and edit by some of the best solicitors in the country as part of the standard service. Member law firms can additionally provide all of MyLawyer's services from a dedicated, fully branded section of their own site.
2009: Epoq launches two new SaaS services for law firms: DirectLaw provides a client-facing portal for self-serve document drafting (allowing firms to offer keenly competitive online services), while Rapidocs® LawDraft provides firms with an environment for the use of Epoq's intelligent Rapidocs® legal templates in-house (to enable reduced drafting times and save on costs).
2010: Epoq has plans to continue to innovate in the legal services market, with expanded services and products for the year ahead.