Law Technology

Renee on Worldox: ?Electronic File Manila Folders? Rock!

By Ross

Many of you know that I spend a lot of time working with MicroLaw clients and their document, email and practice management systems - it’s what I do. I’d like to talk about an aspect of the popular Worldox document management system that makes it easier for the unitiated to understand.

Worldox can be setup to emulate the familiar physical file cabinets from my past and yours - from my days many years ago as a Law Firm Administrator and a litigation paralegal.  Each “file cabinet” has a drawer for each of my clients. Each drawer houses the individual cases or brown expandable folders (red-ropes) for the client whose drawer we’re looking in. Each brown expandable file is neatly organized with manila folders containing like items, i.e. correspondence, pleadings, memo, research notes. It’s a concept every single one of us born before 1990 absolutely understands, right?

Worldox can be set up to do this in exactly the same manner. It does this with all with Profiles (Cabinets), Client/Matter Tables (Drawers and Folders) and Libraries (think “electronic manila folders”).  Not all Worldox users take advantage of the libraries in Worldox, but I personally like them - and Ross actually LOVES them (you should see his face light up when he talked about his beloved “Electronic Manila Folders” when he gets into one of his Paper LESS Office pulpit speeches!) This is especially true when a folder contains a lot of documents, PDFs and emails.  Organizing these items so that I can quickly segregate correspondence when that?s all I want to see is really a time saver. So if you’re a Worldox user not using Libraries (Electronic Manila Folders), we need to talk!

If you are a Worldox library fan like me, it can be helpful to establish a standard set for each profile group (or in plain English, for each “file cabinet”).   Here?s how to do it:

• First, put a text file in the profile?s root Windows folder - so if your client documents are in s:\cases ? put it there.  Don?t sweat the contents of the text file.  It doesn?t matter.
• Browse the Worldox tree to that root directory, then go to List > Libraries.
• Add your standard electronic manila folders here such as Correspondence, Pleadings, Discovery Docs, Research, Notes, Agreements, etc.
• Your standard libraries list will now automatically appear for all your newly opened cases in that profile (File Cabinet).

This is just another way that Worldox can facilitate consistency in document savings and retrieval in your office. And for your MicroLaw Paper LESS Office, Worldox is the reasonably-priced “digital glue” that holds the process together - and especially in helping organize that mess of emails we all have in Outlook. You can find me at reneekodner@microlaw.com for more information about this idea and about how our clients use and rely on programs like Worldox.

Full post as published by Ross Ipsa Loquitur on March 18, 2009 (boomark / email).