Cyberspace April 2007

Cyberspace April 2007

Last month I talked about the proverbial “paperless office.” One of the matters discussed was document management systems. A DMS provides a flexible, easy-to-use filing system that can accept any type of electronic document, including scanned images. However, you would not normally use your main DMS for litigation support, storing your client’s discovery (and that of the opposing parties). Litigation support has different requirements and it’s not a good idea to mix your working documents with a lot of virtually useless documents that need to be removed after a case concludes.

So what do you need? A DMS usually has at least three parts: the program that the user sees, a database and a file server. The database knows about all your clients, matters and staff, and the fileserver actually stores the documents. However, users don’t ever actually use the fileserver directly – that’s handled by the program and database. So to put a document in the DMS the user types in a matter code and a document title, and everything is handled by the DMS. You don’t need to back up a lot of desktop PCs and so long as you back up your DMS properly you have a simplified backup regime and no lost documents.

What if you travel with a laptop? Just check the documents you need out of the DMS before you leave the office. Next time you’re hooked up to your network you check them back in. Alternatively, you can make your DMS available over the internet with the right security and access your documents from work, home, wi-fi hot spots or even over a 3G telephone network.

So where do you buy a DMS? Start with your accounting software vendor – many offer document management modules, including Locus, LEAP, Thomson Elite, Open Practice and others. The advantage of this is that all the information you need such as clients, matters and lawyers already exists in the system.

Standalone products exist that will integrate with your accounting systems, but you’ll need to factor in integration into your costing. It may be worth it if you have more than six or so fee earners. If you have the right licensing regime with Microsoft, you might consider using Sharepoint 2007 as your DMS. Then there’s the Australian product TrackFile, Objective, Interwoven, Hummingbird, Trim, Docushare, Docbanq (internet service), claromentis (an internet service), Smartlibrary, Docs Open, Mentor, Domino, Documentum and many others. Some are open source, which means the software is free to use but you’ll need to purchase support contracts.

So what are the issues around moving to a document management system? If you already carefully file documents on a file server you should be able to migrate them into the DMS. If you’re in a mess you may just want to start afresh. You’ll need some training to get the best out of the system, a really good backup regime, and some confidence that there will be ongoing product support. Open source products excel on the latter point, as any IT consultant has access to the guts of the system and can support you in the long run. Internet services such as Docbanq and claromentis are very attractive because you don’t need to buy hardware or worry about backups; what you do need to worry about is that you don’t physically have your documents, and what happens if they unexpectedly go out of business? You will need to discuss this with the vendor.

Some final thoughts: don’t confuse document management with content management. The latter is aimed at maintaining web sites, not documents. Consider whether you have workflow needs. Do you want to integrate shared calendaring, tasking and contacts? What is the payback to your Firm? (eg savings in hardware, software, risk reduction, backup administration reduction, flexibility in working, document collaboration …) Get on the internet and take a look at some products – perhaps even Google Docs and Spreadsheets will meet your needs.

cyberspace march 2007.doc

I recently received a question from a boutique family law practice regarding a move to the proverbial paperless office. Changing the way you practice is a complex issue and reducing paper or file-size is one we have considered a number of times here. Since there is a growing interest in using technology to reduce paper use and storage I offer a few thoughts here.

It’s become clear to me that only certain types of practice lend themselves to an ‘electronic file.’ We have identified our commercial area (takeovers, mergers, acquisitions etc) as one that lends itself to this approach. This is largely because it is what they are already effectively doing. Just about everything they write is electronic, everything they receive is electronic and the only things that end up on paper are executed agreements/dutiable instruments etc.

We have used a document management system since about 1992, and it stores all our electronic documents – any kind of document, including email, sounds, movies etc as well as normal Word/Excel/PowerPoint. All our document templates and precedents are in it as well, and you can scan incoming paper correspondence and register the scans against the matter as well. I can find documents from 1992 and open them in under 10 seconds. The idea is that you don’t need to worry about where you store your documents – you let the document management system worry about that. All you need to do is link the document to a matter, give it a title and any keywords you want. It’s a handy way to find advices you’ve previously written that may be reusable.

Any solution you choose must cater for email. Our DMS allows us to drag and drop from within Outlook straight into a folder which registers the email and attachments into the system. They are set to be read-only to avoid changing the originals. There are other solutions where the email is sent or read from within the DMS. These often tie in with the email gateway and scan the subject line for a matter number or keyword so that it can be registered without further intervention.

We also use multifunction devices on our floors, which allow us to print/photocopy/scan documents to PDF or TIFF very easily. We can then distribute paper documents throughout our offices in Australia and New Zealand in minutes, as well as register some documents into the DMS. We don’t scan all incoming correspondence as that’s not cost-effective for us, but there are certainly certain practice types where that is possible.

Litigation is a different question altogether. You often need the entire file or at least a reasonable part of it in court for mentions/callovers/etc. I can’t see how a full electronic file will work for such matters, as you’d need to be very adept with a laptop computer at the bar table. It also would preclude you handing documents up to the bench when you don’t have spare copies.

Another issue to consider is the case where your client changes to another solicitor – how do you pass the file on?

On a related note, I have talked to multi-office firms where their typing staff is located in only one office. The lawyers dictate to digital voice recorders and the voice recordings are copied to that office for transcription. The completed document is registered into a DMS and the lawyer notified that it is ready.

I suggest that instead of looking for a paperless office, you look for a paper-reduced office. A document management system is a very good start. In addition, I suggest you start with one process which could become paperless. Finally, you should document your rules and processes, monitor compliance, and refine these as you go along. Think carefully about how these rules will ensure compliance with legislation and other obligations to keep records.