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.