Many larger law firms have for some years used document management systems to manage and maintain huge databases of documents.  But since most firms, regardless of size, are using personal computers and networks to prepare and store documents for future access, document management is becoming a very important tool that smaller firms are using to provide more efficient organization of documents.  Generally speaking, what is document management?  One definition would be the way a law firm creates, reviews, edits, publishes, retains and purges information that has been prepared electronically.

Using a document management system, or DMS, can provide many benefits to any law firm regardless of how many documents that firm produces.  (We all know that even small firms produce large volumes of documents.)  Some of these benefits include:

Document sharing.
More efficient search techniques.
Document control.
Simpler document-naming conventions.
Better redundancy.
Version control.

Currently, in many firms, documents are stored in a number of places, including individual PC hard drives, public and private network drives, desks, paper documents in file cabinets, etc.  This typically results in a tremendous amount of unorganized information that is difficult to manage.  The end result is not being able to find information, potentially using out-of-date or inaccurate information and limiting the ability to leverage existing information, thus having to “re-create the wheel” in many cases.

A DMS can coordinate the changes, access and availability of documents on a firm-wide basis.  Users can share each other’s work product when needed to prepare a similar or related document.  A history of the document is made available at all times which will show who accessed the document, when it was accessed and if any changes were made, providing an important audit trail for all documents.  In addition, a version history is available to provide access to previous versions from any point in time during the document life cycle.

Searching for and finding documents is much easier with the help of a DMS.  Each document has a profile that is prepared when the document is first produced that contains a number of required fields, such as client/matter, document type, author and subject, which become automatically searchable to help quickly find all documents that meet the search criteria.  A DMS will allow you to use search-engine-like plain English query screens and it is not necessary to master the principles of Boolean logic to perform searches.  In addition, a DMS will index all the text of a document, allowing you to search for documents using key words or phrases.

Better document control is achieved with a DMS by preventing two people from editing the same document simultaneously by “locking” the current document when someone has it checked out for editing.  However, the system will allow access to a read-only version of the document if you are simply wanting to see certain language in that document or copy text out of it for use in preparing another document.  The DMS will tell you who has the document checked out so you can contact them if you need full access to it.

A DMS also allows you to assign security or sharing rights to your documents.  A document can be marked private and no one but the author of the document will have access to it.  (It will not even show up in others’ searches.)  A semi-private, or read-only, security assigned to a document will allow others to find the document but will force them to make their own copy of it before any editing can be done.  This is the security you would normally see with forms or templates that have been prepared which are used over and over to prepare similar documents.  Any document with full sharing rights can be accessed, changed, deleted, etc. by any user; but remember, the DMS captures a full history of the document and will note the person who made any unauthorized changes to your document.

Another very important benefit or feature of a DMS is that it automatically “mirrors” a document by saving another copy of the network-saved document to the user’s local hard drive and will keep it there for a preset period of time.  This is especially important in the event your network crashes.  The user can re-boot in local operation and continue to work on the mirrored documents to get the work completed.  When the network is back online, the DMS will take over again and allow the user to resynchronize those documents back to the server.  This same functionality is used by anyone who wants to use a laptop away from the office to produce or edit documents and then reconnect to the network upon their return.

A number of document management products are available, but the more popular ones used in law offices include iManage, Hummingbird (formerly PC Docs), Worldox and Groupwise (successor to Soft Solutions).  For a more comprehensive list of DMS vendors, you can visit http://www.documentmanagement.org.uk/pages/vendors.htm.  Like any sophisticated piece of software, a DMS is not inexpensive and will usually require the services of an in-house network administrator or outside consultant.  However in todays environment of electronic data production, storage and transfer, the benefits of effective document management will greatly outweigh the costs.

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