Now that the novelty of the Internet has worn off it is time to get down to business. For lawyers, there are a number of emerging trends that I believe will improve our quality of life. In particular, I am excited about E-collaboration. Therefore, in this installment of my Tech Tips column I would like to explore some of the ways in which we can use the power of the Internet to improve collaboration with clients, opposing parties, and the court system.

First, I would like to let you in on a secret. . . . some of the stuff you may want is available for FREE!!! Recently, Michael Burak, a fellow member of the VBA's Tech Committee, encouraged me to visit eGroup (www.egroup.com) to create an online group for our committee. Initially, I was skeptical because he said that it was a free service, but upon visiting the site I found it to be a much more valuable tool than I had imagined.

Egroup, Inc., is the leading provider of email group communications. It was recently purchased by Yahoo! - I am sure to make Yahoo's site "stickier" to its millions of users and therefore drive up advertising revenues. In setting up our Tech Committee site, I was impressed with how easy to set up and feature rich the site is. I simply gave our group a name "vbatech", answered a few simple questions and I had our site up within a few minutes. If you would like to check our site out simply search for "vbatech" at www.egroups.com.

For our site, I (initially) decided to make it non-public as I did not think it would be good for others to see it. The effect was much like an unpublished telephone number. No one could find our site unless invited. For purposes of this article and to demonstrate the concept of eGroups to other members of the Bar, I have since made our group public, but still retained the right to approve membership requests. Next, I set it up so that any member of the group could post to the site freely. I could have made it so that everything posted was approved by me first, but that seemed to defeat the collaboration concept that I aimed to prove.

To get the ball rolling, I then created file folders for our committee's meeting agendas and minutes. Automatically, notification was sent via email to every member of the Committee that our meeting minutes and agendas were now available online. I then placed our next meeting on the calendar and set it up to have eGroup automatically remind everyone on the committee, via email, one week and one day before the scheduled meeting. Next, I created a simple poll question, asking members whether they thought it would better for the Tech Committee to organize its own seminars or work in conjunction with other VBA committees to help other committees to incorporate a technology component into their offerings. Finally, I posted a link to a web site containing a nearly comprehensive list of legal vendors for the benefit of our members who are planning our legal technology expo. The entire process of setting up the VBATech group and posting all of the various information took me less than a half hour.

The applications for this technology in the law practice, however, are manifold. Litigators may be the first beneficiaries as I can envision them creating multiple collaborative environments. First, I can see litigators sharing pleadings, discovery and potential exhibits with the key figures in any case file, including other attorneys, paralegals, investigators, clients, experts and possibly some witnesses. Second, I can see litigators using this tool to seek to resolve cases through negotiation or mediation by sharing access to key information and making communication possible 24/7 with a concrete audit trail. Third, I can see courts using something like eGroups to organize case files, improve scheduling, decide motions and facilitate settlements.

Transactional attorneys, however, will also benefit. For example, I can envision real estate practitioners setting up an eGroup for each closing. Loan officers, real estate agents, appraisers, experts, the attorneys and parties themselves could all participate. It would facilitate the exchange of necessary information, the monitoring of progress on punch lists, and the scheduling of various events (including closing) amongst people who often can be quite difficult to get in touch with. Similarly, attorneys who represent corporate entities would be much better able to manage and/or participate in the projects where their advice is needed. Finally, an eGroup could be useful to attorneys in practices like estate planning where they need to obtain a significant amount of information from their clients and possibly third parties.

Thus, E-collaboration is just beginning to emerge on the legal community's horizon. Issues will arise that will need to be addressed. For example, security will be critical to attorneys because of our ethical obligations to clients. The protections built into free services like eGroup may not prove sufficient for many applications. Many business grade options are available that take into account such concerns, however. One of my favorites is called eRoom (www.eroom.com). They have a ten minute animated tour online that will give you a great idea of its functions. For large firms, an investment in eRoom may be warranted, but most smaller firms will find it more cost-effective to pay a subscription fee to eRoom's Application Service Provider (ASP) service and let them handle all of the technical issues.

eRoom has many features that a free service like eGroups does not include. For example, eRoom has version control of and access control to documents, sophisticated security, drag and drop functionality, threaded discussion groups and much more. In other words, you get what you pay for. eGroups, however, does give you the opportunity to test drive the concept for free and will work satisfactorily in some situations. My recommendation is to check out this technology, one way or another. I think you, your clients and our profession is going to like it. Happy E-collaborations!

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.

Steven H. Atherton

The Digital Lawyer