Legal Research

Document Management a Necessity?

By David Bilinsky

?  Oh I…
I want to be with you everywhere…  ?

Words and music by Christine McVie, recorded by Fleetwood Mac.

It seems that we are living in a mini-renaissance with new technology applications being released seemingly daily.  Google has released Google Chrome (see Simon Fodden’s post of Sept 1, 2008) with the stated justification that the web needs a solid foundation for modern web applications.  Law firms face a similar problem - the need for a solid foundation for capturing of all the myriad bits of information that form the electronic client file into one place.

Certainly document management software has been around for some time and larger and mid-size firms have taken it to heart (Interwoven (formerly iManage), Worldox, Livelink ECM-eDOCS KM and others).  But in an increasingly mobile world, lawyers and law office administrators need to have a reasonable degree of assurance that all the work done on the file and the instructions from the client have been dutifully captured and recorded in some fashion in one place.  IM’s, voice mail, office emails, web-based emails, databases, GoogleDocs, documents on flash drives and CD-ROMs or DVDs,  or on web-based depositories need to find their way onto the law office file.  Lawyers also need the ability to access this information (and add to it) when they are in far-flung areas well away from the office.

This is not terribly exciting when compared to new products.  However, it is building a solid foundation for the other systems in the office. And like any good foundation, it allows for even better systems to be built that depend on that foundation.  An added benefit is that no matter where in the world you  may be,  your documents can then be with you everywhere…

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on September 03, 2008 (boomark / email).