The people behind JurisIT
JurisIT was founded in 1992 as Meridian Asia/Pacific, trading as JurisIT since 2015, and is led by Frank Downes, a practising solicitor (NSW) with 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, from offices 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.
Practising solicitor (NSW). Frank understands your regulatory obligations from the inside — not as an outside observer.
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.
Microsoft 365, Purview, Power Automate and Copilot.
Configuration, automation and Microsoft 365 integration.
Published author on LexisNexis — the primary legal research and publishing platform used by Australian and UK solicitors. "Estate Planning: 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 has offices in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Technology, Compliance, and Automation — for law firms only
JurisIT works exclusively with law firms. 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 law firm.
Our three service pillars — Technology, Compliance, and Automation — are delivered with AI governance running across every engagement. Every engagement starts with the obligation your firm is most concerned about. For AI, it's the free AI Risk Snapshot, scored on the JurisIT AI Readiness Index (JARI), which tells us where your firm actually stands, not where we assume it does. For AML/CTF, it's the AML Health Check. For cybersecurity, it's a baseline review.
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.
We do not recommend solutions before we understand the firm's actual position. Every engagement is scoped first, and 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 has offices in Australia and the United Kingdom. This site covers our Australian services, built around Australian obligations including AML/CTF, the Privacy Act and the ASD Essential Eight. UK firms can visit jurisit.co.uk.
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 as Meridian Asia/Pacific, trading as JurisIT since 2015. 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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We work with law firms of every size in Australia and the United Kingdom. Compliance, technology, and automation obligations apply broadly — the shape of an engagement scales with your practice, not a fixed firm-size cut-off.
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Every engagement starts with the obligations your firm has to meet, beginning with the most pressing. We scope the work first, with a clear timeline, defined deliverables and a fixed fee. There is no obligation to proceed. 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 cloud region. 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 data centres. We do not transfer client data outside Australia 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.