About Us

A Brief History

Developing the Concept

Getting effective management of in-house Precedents and other Intellectual Property  has been a thorny issue for many lawyers and law practices for years. 

With no dedicated tools available to solve this problem, and with the rapid growth and understanding of IT, it was time to address the issue.

This is where Order of Precedents was conceived.

Order of Precedents delivers the answer with a more flexible, robust and modern approach.

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Precedent Management is a really thorny issue

“I can’t count the number of times I have heard Lawyers and Practice Managers identifying the achievement of effective precedent management as a tough nut to crack, and one that drags heavily on practice efficiency and profitability.” says Paul Steele.

But what to do?

“It occurred to me that the solution couldn’t be the creation or perfection of a system for each practice, because most simply were not geared up for that. Further no firm would completely restrict itself to a third party system because there are always variables, niche practice areas and Intellectual Property that has gone into documentation that has particular or sensitive value. Another issue was keeping any precedent system up to date.”

So the idea behind Order of Precedents was born. 

A system that allows Lawyers and Law Practices to develop and maintain their precedents through usage over time.

“With Order of Precedents there is no end point. Your precedents will  continually develop so there is no need to have large, reactive and disruptive  one-off revisions that need to be repeated whenever someone decides a review is necessary.” says Paul

Our team

Key Members of the Order of Precedents Team

Paul Steele

Managing Director and Head of Sales and Marketing

Former lawyer, Paul has many years of experience. He practised in Commercial and Property Law before embarking on a career with the principal legal publishers.

Paul is very well known in the New Zealand Legal Industry, and brings a range of skills to lawyers and law practices in areas like Website Marketing, Change and Knowledge Management, Law Library Audits and Workflow systems advice. 

Steven Gardner

Technical Lead and Support

Steven has considerable experience in all facets of IT, including computer programming and website design and development.

Steven looks after the installation, upgrades  and support of Order of Precedents. He also coordinates the system’s development with our programmers.