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TECH TIPS - CREATING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS -
ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
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By: Steven H. Atherton, Esq. (The Digital Lawyer) |
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In my last column, I addressed how attorneys can automate the document generation process to earn more money, improve customer satisfaction and reduce the likelihood of professional malpractice. In this column, I examine the other side of the coin, electronic document management systems. Since the dawn of personal computing, attorneys have created and/or received millions, maybe billions of documents. Unfortunately, many of those documents are not on a firm's computer network and of those that are, it can be next to impossible to find them. In fact, in most firms it is easier to find a document in the file cabinet than it is using the computer. This is a great waste of a firm's investment in computer technology, not to mention a waste of time. Electronic Document Management Systems or EDMS are designed to rectify this problem. For years I ignored EDMS because I was under the mistaken impression that it was only needed by large law firms and litigators that handled many document intensive cases. Recently, I had to study Worldox 98 in order to conduct a seminar at the annual bar meeting in Stowe. In the course of my study, I was so impressed by the product and how affordable it was that I decided to implement EDMS in my office. (By the time you read this, the implementation will have been completed so feel free to call me to see how it went.) EDMS is the solution to the chaos that currently reigns on the desktop PC at most law offices. It provides an extraordinarily simple and automated manner to catalog and save files, establish version control, implement security, archive old files, and view various file formats (i.e. scanned images, audio and video files, etc...). Most importantly, it puts you in control of your firm's most valued asset - the intellectual capital that is your work product. No longer need you recreate the wheel. Now at the touch of a few key strokes, you can retrieve every document on your system that meets your request. Search for documents by author, client/matter number, type (i.e. memorandum of law), date, or key word and moments later every document satisfying your request, regardless of where it is located on your network, is returned with keywords highlighted for your quick review. Every bit of work performed by anyone in your office is now catalogued, fully text searchable, and available for your use so that you never have to recreate the wheel again. Moreover, a good EDMS, like Worldox, incorporates many other features that often prove useful. For example, have you ever found multiple copies of the same document and not known which was the final version? Worldox provides version control and audit trail features that can solve the mystery. Similarly, you may have sensitive documents on your network that you do not want everyone on staff to be able to change and/or read. The access control and security features of Worldox provide the tools necessary to limit who can access and/or change any document. Finally, as your inventory of documents, images, and other files grows you may find that your hard drive fills up rapidly. Worldox helps you to avoid this problem through its archiving function whereby you are prompted to compress old, but needed files and delete those that are obsolete in order to efficiently use the space on your computer hard drive. If you are interested in implementing EDMS at your firm, be sure to seek the help of a trained professional as there are many issues that you will need to address. First, you will need to determine the fields that you will use to describe your documents. Second, you may need to implement new administrative procedures (i.e. assigning a staff person to scan in every piece of correspondence that you receive so that it is accessible from each person's desktop. Third, you will need help to determine the best method to incorporate your existing documents into the database. Fourth, you will want to develop procedures so that as much information as possible (i.e. spreadsheets, email, databases, and images) are incorporated into the system. Finally, you are likely to have some computer hardware, software and network issues that need to be addressed. Fortunately, with Worldox (in contrast with its competitors) it does not take specialized database expertise to run the program so there are few if any hidden costs of ownership. In conclusion, electronic document management is for all attorneys, no matter your practice area or size of firm. It is a great way to put the excess capacity on your computer system to work for you, giving you an additional return on the computer investment you have already made. In Vermont, we are fortunate that an affordable solution like Worldox, scalable to meet the needs of any law firm in Vermont, is available. Its ease of use, affordability and range of features make it an excellent candidate for your next investment dollar.
Copyright [2003]. All rights reserved, except any article may be copied in its entirety, for non-profit usage, with proper attribution so long as a copy of said article, as reprinted, is sent to Mr. Atherton at P.O. Box 90, Northfield Falls, VT 05664. |
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Steven H. Atherton |
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The Digital Lawyer |
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Glossary:
Network. A network is two or more computers that are connected together by cable or otherwise with the ability to share resources (i.e. CD-Roms, hard drives, etc...) and information (i.e. documents, calendars, contacts, messages, etc...) between them.
Workstation. A workstation is a computer that an attorney or staff person uses to do their work. It is to be contrasted with a dedicated network file server, which serves files to all of the users on a computer network.
Version Control. In a law office, documents may go through various drafts, be reused multiple times for different clients and/or shared by various attorneys and/or staff persons. The ability to manage this process so that each draft is easily identifiable and so that only appropriate people have an ability to modify a document is called version control.
Archiving. Many documents and/or files have a life cycle (e.g. active vs. closed files). Archiving is the process whereby old files are retired to their appropriate final destination (i.e. destruction or secondary storage). Electronic archiving parallels this process. Old files can be deleted from computer storage, backed up to CD or floppy disk, or compressed and stored on your hard drive.
Audit trail. Sometimes it is important to follow the various changes to a document over the course of its life. For example, you may want to identify the various drafts a document may have been through, the various people who have worked on a document, the date of particular changes, etc... Software that provides audit trail functionality stores this type of information and makes it available to the end user.
File compression. Just as in a physical office, electronic documents and images take up space on a computers hard drive. In order to fit more information into smaller spaces, computer programmers have developed utilities that enable you to compress electronic information into a smaller space and extract it when you need it. Such utilities are commonly referred to as file compression utilities.
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PO Box 90, 571 Vermont
Route 12 North, Northfield Falls, VT 05664-0090 ~ Phone:
1.802.485.5595 ~ Fax: 1.802.485.5599 |
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