Originally published on July 6, 2009 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.
Documents, documents everywhere. But can you always find them? Do they all exist in one consolidated location? Can you share them with clients, co-counsel, co-workers, experts, or the courts? All fundamental questions we ask ourselves every day. As lawyers we are awash in documents, both in paper and electronic form. Add to that an unending pile of email. Lately, we've begun asking another question — can I access these documents from my smartphone?
The Historical BigLaw Document Management Advantage …
I've always considered document management systems, whether standalone products or the similar functionality built into a number of practice management systems, to be one of the four cornerstones of mission critical law practice tools. The other three cornerstones are billing/financial systems, word processing/document generation, and practice management/case information tracking/docketing/calendaring systems. Practicing any type of law, in a small or large situation, would be practically impossible without these technologies.
Large and mid-sized law firms have had a traditional edge over smaller firm practitioners in the area of document organization, management, and retrieval. The majority of these firms have long used document management systems such as OpenText e-Docs (f/k/a PC Docs or Docs Open), Autonomy Worksite (f/k/a iManage), Worldox, and more recently NetDocuments (documents management in the cloud).
This collection of applications provides a consistent interface and organizational structure for all documents (and email/attachments), often in a simple, file cabinet-like, client/matter format. They allow nearly instantaneous searching of work product — with full-text searching and searches based on "profile information" (i.e. client name, matter title, document type, area of practice, etc.).
But What About Smartphones?
Many smaller firms don't have a document management system — at least not small firms populated by lawyers who didn't come from larger practices that had long relied on such systems. But many small firm lawyers use smartphones — and increasingly they want access to their documents on these devices — a need that may result in a golden age for document management systems.
Let's say you have a shiny new smartphone — a new iPhone 3GS, or a Blackberry, a Treo, or Windows Mobile device. A client calls while you're driving (you of course answer via the Bluetooth connection built into your car), and asks for your opinion on the latest draft of a contract.
You just need quick access to see what your client is seeing. Safety dictates pulling over, but then what? If you have the small-firm friendly Worldox document management system and its Worldox/Web Mobile extension, you can securely access every single case-connected document and email on your office system from your smartphone. You can navigate your client/matter structure and conduct full-text searches, just as if you were in your office.
So you pinpoint the contract, pull it up on your smartphone display, review the question, and if you have a multi-tasking smartphone, call the client back and responsively address their question. If you need to edit, forward it to yourself, then use a tool like Documents to Go to edit the Word file on the fly, and then email it to your client.
That's just one example. Shop around and ask both document management and practice management vendors about their smartphone integration.
Take Advantage of Your Competition and Stand Out …
Clients in this economy are worth their weight in platinum. Giving the impression of responsiveness, leveraged by your investment in technology, is priceless. But don't let your clients take it for granted. Tell them that thanks to your investment in the latest document management and smartphone technologies, you can serve their case handling needs from anywhere, anytime they need your input. Given the number of small firms that don't invest in technology, you'll stand out and recoup your investment.
Written by Ross Kodner of MicroLaw.
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