The people behind JurisIT
JurisIT was founded in 1992 and is led by Frank Downes — a practising solicitor with 34 years of experience across accounting, technology, compliance, legal practice and legal publishing. Frank leads a team of consultants with backgrounds in law, technology, and compliance. The firm works exclusively with law firms of 5 to 15 fee earners in Australia and the United Kingdom.
JurisIT is not a generalist IT consultancy that happens to serve law firms. Every person on the JurisIT team has worked in or directly adjacent to legal practice. That background is not incidental — it is the reason our advice is different.
Founder & Principal
Frank is a practising solicitor (NSW) specialising in legal technology, compliance, and automation for conveyancing and estates law firms. We do not provide legal services to clients — we support law firms in delivering them more efficiently and compliantly.
Frank's background in legal practice means he understands your regulatory obligations, professional duties, and client relationships — from the inside.
Frank co-founded WinMail®, the world's first Windows based email system, and has spent the years since helping law firms get more out of their technology investment. He leads a team of consultants with backgrounds in law, technology, and compliance — and you will always have access to that expertise directly.
Frank is a Clio Certified Partner and a LexisNexis author. He was formerly a member of the STEP Digital Assets Steering Committee, contributing to the profession's guidance on digital asset estate planning. He has worked with law firms across Australia and the United Kingdom on technology strategy, compliance frameworks, and workflow automation.
Frank Downes — Founder, JurisIT
Qualifications & affiliations
The following credentials are the basis for JurisIT's authority in legal technology and AI governance. Each one represents a formal qualification, partnership, or contribution — not a claim.
Frank is a practising solicitor in New South Wales. That qualification means he understands your regulatory obligations, professional duties, and duty to clients from the inside — not as an outside observer — and it grounds the advice JurisIT gives on AI governance, data handling, and compliance.
Verified Clio Certified Partner. Formal partnership with Clio, the world's leading legal practice management platform. Listed on Clio's partner directory. JurisIT is one of a small number of Clio Certified Partners operating in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Published author on LexisNexis — the primary legal research and publishing platform used by Australian and UK solicitors. "Estate Planning: Introduction to Digital Assets" — peer-reviewed legal publishing.
Former member of the STEP Digital Assets Steering Committee — contributing to the profession's guidance on digital asset estate planning. Domain knowledge only, not current membership.
Co-founder of WinMail®, the world's first Windows based email system. Early Microsoft partner.
JurisIT operates across both the Australian and UK legal technology markets, serving small law firms in each jurisdiction.
Technology, Compliance, and Automation — for law firms only
JurisIT works exclusively with law firms of 5 to 15 fee earners. We do not work with other industries. We do not offer generalist IT support. Every service we provide is designed specifically for the operational and regulatory environment of a small law firm.
Our three service pillars — Technology, Compliance, and Automation — are delivered with AI governance running across every engagement. Before we recommend any technology or build any automation, we run JARI: the JurisIT AI Readiness Index. It tells us where your firm actually stands, not where we assume it does.
The engagement model
JurisIT works with a limited number of firms at any one time. That is deliberate. The quality of what we deliver depends on the depth of engagement, and depth requires focus.
Every engagement begins with a diagnostic — either the free AI Audit or a full Practice Resilience® diagnostic, depending on the scope of work. We do not recommend solutions before we understand the firm's actual position. The diagnostic produces a scoped proposal. The proposal gives you a clear picture of what the work involves, what it costs, and what it produces. There is no obligation to proceed.
When you engage JurisIT you have direct access to the team. Work is not handed to junior staff or managed through account managers. The consultants who scoped your engagement are the consultants who deliver it.
Australia and United Kingdom
JurisIT operates across both jurisdictions. The Technology and Automation services are identical in both markets. The Compliance services are jurisdiction-specific — covering UK GDPR and data protection, SRA requirements, AML obligations, and NCSC Cyber Essentials in the United Kingdom, and the equivalent privacy, anti-money-laundering, and cybersecurity frameworks in Australia.
Scotland's conveyancing system is a fundamentally different legal process from England & Wales. Conveyancing automation flows built for England & Wales do not transfer to Scotland. JurisIT scopes Scottish conveyancing engagements separately.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. JurisIT is a legal technology and governance consultancy. We do not provide legal advice and we are not regulated as a law firm. Frank Downes is a practising solicitor, and that qualification informs the depth of understanding JurisIT brings to legal practice — but JurisIT's engagements are technology, compliance, and automation engagements, not legal advice engagements.
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JurisIT was founded in 1992. Over 34 years we have worked with law firms through the introduction of desktop computing, Microsoft Office applications, fax and email technologies, the shift to networked practice management systems, the move to cloud-based platforms, and now the arrival of AI in legal workflows. The problems change. The underlying challenge — helping law firms get more out of their technology investment without creating new risks — has remained the same throughout.
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Occasionally. The 5 to 15 fee earner range is where the investment required to build a proper technology and governance foundation produces the clearest returns and the most sustainable change. Smaller firms are often stretched too thin to engage properly with the process. Larger firms introduce internal politics that slow decisions to a standstill. If your firm falls outside that range but you have a genuine commitment and the organisational clarity to follow through, we are open to a conversation.
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Every engagement begins with a diagnostic — either the free AI Audit or a full Practice Resilience® diagnostic. The diagnostic produces a scoped proposal with a clear timeline, defined deliverables, and fixed pricing. There is no obligation to proceed after the diagnostic. If you do proceed, you have direct access to the JurisIT team throughout the engagement. Work is not handed to junior staff or managed through account managers.
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Both. Most JurisIT engagements are delivered primarily remotely — the nature of cloud-based legal technology means that configuration, migration, and automation work can be done without being physically present in the firm. Where on-site presence adds value — staff training, change management sessions, system go-live support — we attend in person.
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Client data stays within Microsoft's Australian or UK cloud regions, depending on your jurisdiction. JurisIT operates within the Microsoft Partner framework, which means our engagements involving Microsoft 365 and Azure are governed by Microsoft's data residency and security commitments. Clio maintains Australian and UK data centres. We do not transfer client data outside the jurisdictional cloud region without explicit instruction.
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Yes — and deliberately. JurisIT uses AI tools across our own practice: in research, document drafting, content production, and operational workflows. We are always looking for ways to improve what we do through automation and AI, and we apply the same governance standards to our own tool use that we recommend to our clients. We think a consultancy advising law firms on AI governance that does not itself use AI would be a contradiction. We walk the talk — which means our advice comes from direct experience of what works, what the risks are, and what governance actually looks like in practice.