"The software was there to promote at Interlegal, but it was always with a view to then sell the services that went with it," he said.

The new company will now be named after the central Caseflow product, with Interlegal still continuing to provide first-level support and training for the product.

After exploring a number of case management offerings overseas in what he calls "mature markets", Smith realised Caseflow could find a steady following offshore also. "I was impressed with what I saw overseas but I realised that it was definitely a market that Caseflow could compete in," he said.

But extending the product, said Smith, will also mean ensuring that the software can be locally supported. Smith believes he can better meet the needs of customers and compete better against larger players in the market by offering more specific customer service - and offering new customers the same services his existing clients in Victoria have come to expect. "My clients know that if they have an issue with the software they can call me and I will fix it, because I'm a programmer and I built it," he said.

With an impressive resume, Smith could well be one of the longest-running legal programmers in the game. After putting a legal spin to his programming abilities in the early 1980s, he went on to co-found Interlegal in the 1990s. "The aim was to establish an organisation that would do integration," he said. "Back then integration wasn't common."

Interlegal has signed a seven-year Caseflow Reseller Agreement, to continue to provide service delivery and ensure an ongoing relationship with existing customers.

Smith said Caseflow will be based out of new premises in Victoria, with a primary objective to build new relationships with Legal IT suppliers, in order to ensure that services for the product are available locally.