Barhead wins Microsoft ANZ Social Impact award for CFP solution

Barhead Solutions has been awarded the 2024 Microsoft Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Social Impact Partner of the Year Award for its Consensus for Purpose (CFP) solution. This Microsoft-based legal practice management system was developed in collaboration with Marrickville Legal Centre, Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), and Women's Legal Service Queensland to aid community legal centres (CLCs) in providing legal representation to disadvantaged communities.

Each year, 154 CLCs across Australia are unable to assist over 368,000 individuals seeking legal help. The development of CFP aims to mitigate this situation by automating administrative tasks and streamlining work processes, helping to save the sector approximately AUD $25 million over five years, contingent on an 80% adoption rate by CLCs.

Marrickville CEO Vasili Maroulis commented on the impact of CFP amidst rising demands for free and affordable legal representation. 'By automating basic administrative tasks and streamlining work processes, the Consensus for Purpose solution unlocks much needed people resources who can now direct their expertise towards addressing those that need legal support. We estimate there will be an immediate benefit to the thousands of people we help every year and limit the number of people we have to turn away due to resource constraints – so it's a real gamechanger.'

Barhead Co-founder John Orrock echoed the sentiment, emphasising the potential sector-wide savings and enhanced service delivery. 'If CFP is adopted by 80% of CLCs, the entire sector can save approximately AUD $25 million over 5 years.' Orrock also highlighted the security and scalability of the platform, 'As part of our ongoing community involvement, Barhead is helping not-for-profits and CLCs with their AI readiness, and the CFP does exactly that, with a platform that leverages Copilot and can be easily implemented by community legal centres across Australia.'

Leveraging Microsoft's AI technology, including Copilot, CFP aims to improve service delivery speed and confidence. Orrock asserts, 'Leveraging Microsoft's technology platform, including AI and Copilot, CLCs can provide more services faster and with more confidence using a solution that's designed to be built once and deployed to many.'

This recognition from the Microsoft ANZ Social Impact Award marks the fourth time Barhead has been acknowledged at the Partner of the Year (POTY) awards. Previously, the company won in the Social Impact category in 2020 and 2022 and was a finalist in the Power Platform and Social Impact categories in 2021.

Barhead CEO and Co-founder Ken Struthers highlighted the significance of their partnership with Microsoft. 'Our close relationship with Microsoft has been key to developing innovative solutions built on Dynamics 365, Power Platform and now Copilot for the not-for-profit sector. The Microsoft ANZ Partner of the Year Award for Social Impact is an acknowledgement of all the wonderful work Barhead and our partner community legal centres have done, and we will continue to work with both Microsoft and not-for-profits to help address the most pressing issues in our communities.'

Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, stated, 'Congratulations to the winners and finalists of the 2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards. The momentum generated by numerous AI & Copilot announcements this year fueled innovation from our partners, enabling groundbreaking services and solutions to customers. I am inspired by the capability and creativity in our partner ecosystem and this year's winners beautifully demonstrate the best of what's possible with AI and the Microsoft Cloud.'