Today’s microprocessors have enabled a new technology—they are the “brains” behind products from pocket calculators to satellite control systems. That same sophistication and reliability is now available to the legal profession in a unique application involving Trust and Probate Management. Computerisation has been a challenge to the legal profession, for although the law generally operates on established legal precedents each matter will ultimately be a unique and individual affair. For this reason it has been difficult to produce computer formulae or programs which are capable of handling the nuances of each case within the overall context of established legal precedents.

Peter Bagwell Purefoy, of Magna Legal Precedents in Tunbridge Wells, began investigating the possibility of computerising Trust and Probate Management a little over two years ago. He explains: “We knew how easy it was to manage Trusts badly. To manage Trusts well, we had to develop a system which would be prompt, accurate but not too expensive”. It quickly became apparent that the system Purefoy was looking for did not exist, and at that time, no one had even attempted to develop a program which could handle investment accounting and other functions of a Trust Manager.

Through investigating computer systems, Purefoy talked to Canon about their microcomputers and eventually to Brent Computer Systems, about software development and it was from this contact that the Trust and Probate system began to take shape.

Keith Dean, of Brent Computers, comments: “What makes the Magna Trust and Probate system categorically different from most other computer applications is that it is primarily concerned with storing, archiving and recalling large amounts of narrative information. Each Trust involves perhaps 12 people, plus accounts for every asset associated with it, and the principal task in management is making certain that all relevant accounts and entries are updated simultaneously as and when changes in status occur”.