About
Practice management for the way Ghanaian law firms work
Docavra is a software company in Accra. We build the system a law firm runs its practice on, written to the rules a Ghanaian firm works under.
The company
Who we are
Docavra builds practice management software for law firms in Ghana. A firm keeps its matters, court diary, documents, tasks, time, billing and client money in one system, and every rule a Ghanaian practice has to keep is part of how that system works.
We started from the work firms here actually do: a conflict check before a matter opens, client money kept apart from the firm's own, deadlines counted from the rules of court, invoices that meet the VAT and E-VAT rules, and personal data handled as the Data Protection Act requires. Too many systems keep a list of matters and clients and stop there. Docavra carries the work through.
We are based in Accra, and we build for firms of every size, from a sole practitioner to a practice with several offices.
Why we exist
Mission and vision
Our mission
To give every law firm in Ghana a system that keeps its matters, deadlines, money and confidences in order, so its lawyers can spend their time on the law.
Our vision
A profession in which no deadline is missed for want of a reminder, no client's money is mixed with the firm's, and every firm, whatever its size, runs on software made for the way it works.
The difference
Why firms choose Docavra
What a firm gets that a list of matters and clients does not give it.
Built to Ghana's rules
Client accounts, conflict checks, court deadlines, VAT and E-VAT and the Data Protection Act are part of the product. Where the law leaves a choice, the firm's own lawyer sets it, and the source is cited.
The whole practice in one system
Matters, the court diary, documents, tasks, time, billing, client money and the client portal share one record, so nothing is typed twice and nothing falls between two systems.
Secure from the first sign-in
Two-step sign-in, permissions set role by role, ethical walls, sensitive fields encrypted, and an audit trail of every change a firm relies on.
Made for firms of every size
Offices, departments, practice areas and roles are the firm's own to set, so a sole practitioner and a firm of several offices each run it the way they work.
Our values
What we value
What every part of the product, and everyone who works on it, holds to.
- 01
Confidentiality first
What a client tells a firm is protected at every step. Access follows permission, and what a firm walls off stays walled.
- 02
Done properly
A feature is finished when it covers the whole of the work a firm does with it, not when its screen first appears.
- 03
Plain words
Every screen says what it does in the words a lawyer uses, and every decision that changes a record keeps its reason.
- 04
Right every time
A deadline, a balance or a bill has to be right, so every change is tested before it reaches a firm.
- 05
In it for the long run
A firm runs on its system for years, so we plan for years: documented, supported, and with the firm's data always its own.
Continuity
What protects the firm
Every partner asks what happens to the firm's records if the company behind its system falters. Here is the answer, in the order it matters.
- 01
Each firm has a database of its own
The application is shared, the records are not. Every firm's matters, money and documents sit in a database and a document store of their own, never pooled with another firm's. Enterprise firms can have their own servers as well.
- 02
The firm's data leaves whole, whenever it asks
Every record, document and its full history is handed over in open formats the firm can import into another system. That holds if the firm moves on, and it holds if the company ever stops trading.
- 03
Everything is written down
Every module is documented so that an engineer new to the system can deploy, back up, restore and change it. A part of the product is not finished until that documentation exists.
- 04
No single person holds the keys
Two backup engineers hold the code, the documentation and the access to run the service, so support and releases never wait on one person.
Support
How support works
Every day, around the clock, by WhatsApp, phone or email, with the cover for absences written down.
Around the clock
Support is open every day, at any hour. A reply comes within four hours, and anything that stops the firm working gets a fix or a workaround the same day.
What is included
Fixes to anything that does not work as documented, every update, and help by WhatsApp, phone or email for the people using it. Changes the firm asks for beyond that are quoted first.
People who know the system
You talk to the engineers who build it, not a ticket queue. The numbers are below and on the contact page.
When an engineer is away
Cover is arranged at the same response times, and the firm is told in advance. Nothing waits for someone to come back.
See it against your own matters
A 45 minute walkthrough using your own matters. No commitment, and nothing to install to watch it.