In-House Counsel

Three points beyond the overview post on SharePoint

By Rees Morrison

SharePoint must have a huge following, since the post I wrote a few days back attracted many readers (See my post of June 1, 2009: SharePoint as an option for legal departments.). Yet the post was quite generic.

What is the name of even one legal department that uses SharePoint as its matter management system?

Second, if it takes consultants or IT to customize the system ? create it almost from scratch ? how can that be cost-effective? I have written before about hand-crafted systems in legal departments (See my post of May 8, 2008: difference between customized and configured software; June 15, 2008: GM?s patents for legal department software; April 13, 2008: law department customized data mapping software; March 26, 2008: Cisco?s customized contract management system; March 29, 2009: ACCESS database application; June 4, 2007: Wal-Mart customized its I-9 software; May 23, 2007: GE?s programming group for customized software; Jan. 30, 2006: customized patent software; Sept. 18, 2006: advantages of user groups; Feb. 12, 2006: US Army Claims Services? bespoke package; Sept. 5, 2005: a Lotus Notes application; and Dec. 5, 2005 on Thomas Miller & Co. and its OASIS customized software.)?

Third, is the software closer to open source than the other dozen or so matter management packages out there (See my post of Aug. 5, 2008: matter management systems with 35 references.)? Is it really a programming language with lots of pre-built modules?

I welcome clarification from readers.

Full post as published by Law Department Management on June 03, 2009 (boomark / email).