“In my opinion, Legal Suite meets the needs that a legal department may meet “— Céline Martini, director of legal and administrative coordination of the city of Noumea
Céline Martini is the Director of Legal and Administrative Coordination for the City of Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia and one of the largest municipalities on the island, with more than 1,200 public agents.
She leads a team of 24 professionals organized into three departments: the Municipal Council, Administrative Coordination, and Legal and Litigation Services. Since 2022, Céline and her teams have been using the Legal Affairs and Litigation modules of Legal Suite, which have helped them better monitor and manage legal files while addressing key operational challenges within their community.
"When I took office in June 2020, I quickly identified several challenges that needed to be resolved.
First, accessing information from legal files was both difficult and time-consuming. Although the files were centralized on a shared network, the main issue was accessing reliable and up-to-date data.
The use of Excel spreadsheets to aggregate and track all files made the process overly complex for the staff, which resulted in a loss of visibility and reliability. This challenge was compounded by regular team turnover, making consistent tracking even harder.
Another major limitation was the lack of alerts and notifications for key deadlines, which increased the risk of oversight.
I also have to regularly provide concise updates to the General Secretariat and the Executive on all ongoing matters, often within short timeframes. Preparing annual and monthly reports was particularly time-consuming, as all indicators had to be collected and compiled manually.
In addition, our teams needed to access work tools remotely—for teleworking or while traveling—but the existing infrastructure at the time did not allow it. The need for a dedicated legal case management tool was therefore identified shortly after my arrival. This initiative also aligned with the City of Nouméa’s broader strategy to modernize operations and digitize administrative processes."
"The implementation project for our legal software was carried out in collaboration with the IT department. Our main challenge was to meet both the operational needs of the legal team and the technical requirements of IT.
As part of this project, we evaluated several software vendors. Considering all our legal and technical needs—particularly our desire for a cloud-hosted (SaaS) solution—we ultimately chose Legal Suite.
Legal Suite stood out for its ability to manage both Advisory and Litigation matters within a single platform. This was crucial for us, as we wanted to avoid multiplying tools and to simplify the daily work of our staff."
"One of the key advantages of the solution is its turnkey deployment, which required minimal configuration. Implementation was supported internally by one IT colleague and one legal professional, working closely with the Legal Suite team.
We completed dedicated training sessions for both the Advisory and Litigation modules to quickly build expertise. On a personal note, I also followed an additional course to become a module administrator. From configuration to training, the solution was fully operational in our daily work within one month."
"Today, the solution fully meets the needs we identified at the outset. The first challenge was to encourage teams to input data consistently and in a standardized way.
As a manager, I now have greater visibility over workloads and a clearer view of our active cases, which makes it much easier to allocate files efficiently.
The tool also improves information sharing and transparency within the team, thanks to better traceability and historical tracking of each case.
Monthly activity and annual reports are now generated much faster, and the financial component is particularly valuable: it allows our administrative and accounting teams to access and track legal expenses such as attorney fees in real time. During budget preparation, we must consolidate all updated provisions from ongoing litigation files. Having this information instantly accessible at the click of a button is a major benefit."
"For each report to the General Secretariat, I attach the summary sheet generated for each litigation file. This feature is extremely useful—it allows me to include a concise overview and full case history directly in my reporting emails. The feedback from the General Secretariat has been very positive.
Before using the software, I could spend up to two hours on complex files gathering and consolidating all the necessary information for my summaries. Now, with the automatic export of the summary sheet, this process is completed in minutes—a tremendous time saver.
Finally, monitoring litigation procedures has been transformed. In the past, our Excel tracking tables lacked sufficient detail, forcing me to search through every entry manually—a time-consuming and tedious task. With Legal Suite, this process is now seamless, structured, and far more efficient."
"My team quickly understood my need for follow-up but the approach initially challenged them. As it was used, our agents saw interest in it themselves. All changes are now dematerialized, which is a real evolution compared to the much heavier paper initialing process used to be used.
Once agents had taken ownership of the software, notifications, and quick access to documents associated with the files presented. significant advantages in their daily lives."
"Having worked in several communities, the Legal Suite software meets, in my opinion, the needs that a legal department can meet. I also find the interface pleasant and easy to use. The functionalities of Legal Suite in the area of Advice and Litigation fully meet the challenges of local authorities."
