Why Document Management: a White Paper

Why Document Management:a White Paper

John HeckmanHeckman Consultingwww.heckmanco.com

[email protected](201) 792-0022

November, 2008Ver. 1.0

mailto:[email protected]

Table of ContentsExecutive Summary Introduction: Why Document Management? Types of Document Management

DIY Document Management Optional ObligatoryStatic Cloud (Internet-based)

Thinking About Buying Document Management Actually Purchasing the Software Implementing Document Management

Every Site a Snowflake? Plan, Plan, Plan Involve End Users, Set Expectations Designing the System Old “Legacy” Documents Integration with Other Software Email Scanning Working Remotely & Web AccessBrief Banks/Forms Training Followup

Basic Functionality Searching Viewing Documents Archiving Audit Trails Security Taking it with You

Email General Saving Outgoing EmailSaving Incoming EmailSaving Existing EmailAccessing and Saving Archived EmailManaging Email Attachments

Scanning Workflow

Workflow Issues – Email Workflow Issues – Scanning Other Workflow - Forms Approval

Other Brief Banks – Why Aren’t They More Common?Document Assembly Collaboration

Appendix Programs Referred To

Document Management Page 1 of 25 ©Heckman Consulting

Executive Summary

Everyone organizes their documents, emails, scans,electronic faxes, graphics, etc. in some fashion,whether or not they use a document managementsystem (“DMS”). More sophisticated users developnaming conventions to make identifying and retriev-ing documents easier. The question is, what does aspecifically “document management” program suchas Hummingbird, Interwoven or Worldox get youthat some home-made system does not?

Just as everyone organizes their documents, so toohas everyone not using a document managementsystem spent much too much time hunting for “lost”documents, often even re-typing them, hunting forsubdirectories that were “dragged and dropped” whoknows where, and so on. These are some of theissues that typically drive firms to adopt a documentmanagement system.

Today, attorneys are swamped with information thatgoes beyond traditional “documents,” includingemails, faxes, scanned documents and pages savedfrom the Internet, as well as traditional documentsgenerated by the firm. A Document ManagementSystem is the traffic cop that brings order to thischaos: organizing it by client/matter, categorizingthe types of documents you have and directing themto the proper place. So by “documents” here Iinclude all these items.

This document has three purposes:

1. To make the case for document manage-ment systems as such.

2. To raise issues and functionality that adocument management system can (orshould) provide that perhaps your firm hadnot considered.

3. To consider some of the best practicesinvolved in implementing and using a docu-ment management system.

Thus some sections of this paper have a moregeneral conceptual approach, while others have moreof a “how to” flavor.

This paper focuses primarily on Worldox, since Ibelieve it to be by far the best suited to small andmedium size firms.

Many parts of this document were originally pub-lished as shorter posts in my blog Does It Com-pute?, although they have been extensively rewrittento eliminate redundancy.

Finally, I realize it is utopian to suppose that all mysuggestions will be implemented by any given firmbut if you at least are conscious of why you don’twant to implement them, you will be ahead of thegame.

John Heckman

Introduction: Why Document Management?

For medium and large law firms, with tens orhundreds of thousands of documents, using adocument management program to organize, indexand control their documents is an absolute necessity.

Many solo practitioners and smaller firms, however,do not see the need. They feel that with a wellthought out directory structure they can have ade-

quate access to their documents. They argue thatany added functionality offered by document man-agement programs is not worth the expense ofadditional hardware and software, training, andadministration. This paper details some of theadvantages document management offers even a solopractitioner or small law firm.

http://www.doesitcompute.typepad.com

http://www.doesitcompute.typepad.com


Naturally, there is a wide range of opinion concern-ing what features are critical and which are “super-fluous” bells and whistles. And like word processingprograms, document management tends to conformto the “80-20” rule: 80% of people use only 20% ofthe program. However, people in different practiceareas or with administrative functions tend to use adifferent 20% of the program, so this is not reflectiveof the overall use of a program firmwide. And keepin mind that when a feature that might otherwise beconsidered an “extra” is needed, it is often very badlyneeded.

How Document Management Works

In a document management system, each document– or email, fax, scanned item, or saved Web page –is assigned a profile sheet or “template” which typi-cally contains a long descrip-tion for the document, au-thor, client/matter informa-tion, document type (brief,contract, memo, etc.) andperhaps other items. Forexample, an insurance com-pany might want to identifythe state law governing poli-cies or contracts. A firm representing a real estatedeveloper might need extra fields to identify theclient (the developer), the specific property, andvarious tenants. Both the profile and the full text ofthe document are indexed for rapid retrieval. A filename is assigned by the document managementsystem, which decides where to store the documentbased on criteria set up by the firm (author, docu-ment type, client/matter number). This process istransparent to the end-user who never even sees theunderlying structure.

A second type of document management system,represented by programs such as Document Locatorand Laserfiche, depend on an expanded version ofWindows Explorer to organize documents. Theseprograms tend to be more popular with non-legalcompanies. They also frequently focus on managinga static document store, rather than ongoing draftingof documents. Thus they are more appropriate for

implementations in, for example, town government(tracking tax and property records), hospitals andhealth care companies (patient records), banks andsimilar areas. They frequently offer (optional and atadditional cost) advanced data mining capabilities.

Legal document management systems tend to beintegrated in all aspects of the firms work – takingover saving and retrieving all documents, emails,faxes, scans, or saved Web pages – whereas the“static” document management systems require atwo-step process of importing documents into thesystem (in however an automated fashion that maybe), hence the appellation “store and forward”systems.

One of the first issues a firm needs to decide iswhether or not use of the document management

system should be obligatory.Giving users the option of “opt-ing out” of document manage-ment almost inevitably meanscrippling the system due tohuman error or lack of coopera-tion by recalcitrant users. So theability to “lock down” the sys-tem is often a “deal breaker.”

When a user starts to retrieve a document, a list ofthe most recent documents he or she has worked on,including the long document description, appearsfirst. If the desired document is not on this list, theuser enters search criteria on the profile screen andis presented with a list of “hits.” Fairly complexboolean searches are generally possible, including acombined search of both the profiles and the fulltext index of the entire document store.

Depending on the program, additional features canprovide advanced security options, better reportingon document use, version control, an audit trailshowing who has accessed the document, and so on.

Key Considerations/Features in Opting for Document Management

What are the key considerations that lead a firm toadopt a document management system rather than

The DMS acts as the trafficcop at the crossroads of theinformation highway: control-ling, organizing and directingthe flow of information.


continuing with a manual system? The key pointslisted here will be developed at greater length below.

Client/Matter-Centric Approach. Many individualattorneys use their Outlook in-box as their “docu-ment management system,” often storing 5-10,000emails there. The problem is that Outlook is basedon individuals: there is no automated way to locateall the emails relevant to a particular matter acrossthe firm. Document management systems, on theother hand, tend to be client- or matter-centric:everything is organizedaround clients and matters.Thus it is trivial to ask thesystem: “show me all the doc-uments, scanned items andemails” for Client X orMatter Y.

Centralizing Force. Document management is acentralizing force. When all users are obliged to usethe same system, you are assured that, for example,all correspondence is stored under “correspondence”rather than “letters;” or under “motions” rather thandiffering subsets of motions and that everyone usesthe same conventions. In addition, it ensures that alldocuments, emails, faxes, scans and saved Webpages are stored in the same place, rather than somebeing stored on the server and some on the localdesktop; that all documents are organized using thesame system instead of having a given client’sdocuments stored using different criteria – by user,by practice area, document type, etc. Note that thisis also an increasingly important criteria in relationto electronic ediscovery by facilitating rapid andcomplete retrieval of all relevant documents.

Greater Speed of Document Retrieval. In a manualsystem, the user must know where an existingdocument has been stored and what its name is.While most users are fairly efficient at finding theirown documents, searching for a document createdby someone else can take a significant amount oftime, which in any event is bound to be greater thanthe 5 seconds or less it takes a document manage-ment system to find a document. In many cases, a

user spends 5 minutes or more searching for adocument, or even winds up retyping it!

Avoidance of Human Error. The time lost in amanual system due to human error is substantial. Auser may have stored a document in the wrong placeby accident, forgotten what the document wasnamed, or even “dragged and dropped” an entiredirectory to some new location without even beingaware of it. When someone other than the originalauthor tries to access a document, difficulties are

compounded. A user may haveto look in four or five placesbefore finding a document, oreven be unable to find it at all.If the original author of thedocument is out of the officedue to vacation, illness, etc.this can be a serious problem.

When people change jobs or assignments, theproblem is aggravated.

Control over Document Access. Document man-agement typically gives a firm much better controlover document security and access. Confidentialdocuments can be made available only to the peoplewho need to see them, whether it be accounting,human resources, trusts and estates or those respon-sible for highly confidential client matters.

By defining what groups of people have access towhich kinds of documents, document managementsystems avoid the problems inherent in passwordingdocuments, which range from forgetting passwordsto posting them on yellow stickies on the computermonitor. Security provisions frequently include anaudit trail showing who last accessed a document,who made changes, printed it, checked it out, etc.

Full Profile and Text Indexing. The fact that pro-files and the full text of all documents are indexedhas other advantages besides increased efficiency inretrieving documents. For example, you can definea search that lets you see at a glance all documents ofa particular type that contain certain words (all briefscontaining the term “amputation” for example). Fulltext indexing can also be of assistance in conflict

Outlook is based on individu-als ... document managementsystems tend to be client- ormatter-centric.


checking, for example by searching on all documentsthat refer to a particular business or person. Whiledesktop search engines will full text index yourdocuments, they are not matter-centric, so a com-bined search for text + type of document or client isnot available. Finally, in some programs, such asWorldox, when you do a full text search and then“View” a document in the hit list, the document isopened at the specific text you searched for.

Email Integration. With more and more communi-cation and document exchange taking place viaemail, integration of your email system into thedocument management system is increasinglyimportant. With the new rules on ediscovery, onecould even argue that this might be the most criticalitem in a document management system.

Other Features. Many ofthe specifics of a documentmanagement system will bedealt with below. In additionto the items mentionedabove, some of the key addi-tional “bells and whistles”firms often need in a systeminclude:

! Integration with all the main programs you use,in particular e-mail and scanned documents, aswell as Acrobat, Excel, etc.

! Incorporate all your scanned documents in thedocument management system, including withfull-text searching.

! Save Web pages from a browser to the DMS.! Individual document security as well as by

category (e.g., all HR documents)

! The ability to create an “ethical wall” aroundcertain clients or for certain attorneys.

! Audit trail to see who has accessed (printed,checked-out, etc.) documents.

! Reporting (all documents of a certain type, or alldocuments used by “X”).

! Check-out/Check-in of documents; the abilityto take a set of documents with you or on alaptop.

! “Mirroring” so that backup copies on the localhard drive let you continue to work if network isdown (especially useful if you are using a laptopand want to take things with you).

! Automated link to Time/Billing system so thatnew matters can be imported into the systemautomatically.

! Version Control.

! Web Access to your document store.

Cost/Return on Investment (ROI)

Law firms typically do not pay alot of attention to Return onInvestment, although in themidst of a recession that ischanging. Most of the studiesyou see estimate a cost savings asa percentage of investment. Fora small firm, however, there is a

more telling measure and one that is easier to evalu-ate.

Lets say implementing a document managementsystem such as Worldox costs $1,000 per user.Larger systems are likely to cost close to double that.Say a user saves 10-12 minutes a day (and that is avery conservative estimate) or an hour a week. So anattorney who bills just $200 an hour recaptures hisinvestment in five weeks! You can juggle the num-bers any way you see fit: the fact is that the return oninvestment for a document management system isalmost always going to be six months or less. Natu-rally this varies according to product. See the“overhead” considerations for types of documentmanagement below.

The Return on Investment forany document managementsystem will be six months orless.


Types of Document Management

Do-It-Yourself

Many solo practitioners or small firms believe thatfile naming conventions and a structure can functionas a “free” version of document management. Fre-quently this approach proposes a structure that doesindeed mimic what a document management systemwould offer, namely organizing files by client,matter, document type and with a naming conven-tion starting with date: “YYYY-MM-DD name offile.doc” or some such. This is sometimes combinedwith a desktop search engine for indexing.

Is such a DIY Document Management systemadequate for a small firm? The problem with thesesystems is that they are (a) manual; (b) depend onaccurate input from end users; and © offer verylimited capabilities in comparison with a true docu-ment management system. So the question is, whatfeatures and functionality justify the expense ofadopting “document management?” If you answeryes to even one of the following questions, then youneed a document management system.

(1) Do you want usage to be enforced? Or do youwant to have people have to think about whether ornot they will follow a voluntary convention. Doesthe firm want to control and track all its documents?This is doubly true with the new electronic discoveryrules, where it might be argued that someone whostored a file not in the proper place was trying tohide something. This has actually happened fordeletion of emails and penalties have run into themillions of dollars.

(2) Do you want the naming of documents to beautomated? Why should you type in “YYYY-MM-DD” for every single file you save when you can getthe computer to store that information for you?Why should you have to scroll through a bunch ofdirectories when the document management pro-gram can search an index qualitatively faster?

(3) Do you want it to integrate your email, so thatall documents, scanned items and email are available

with a single search? As the question of organizingemail becomes increasingly important – and Out-look organizes email by individual not by client –this can be a critical consideration.

(4) Do you want full boolean search capabilities thatcombines full-text searching with a matter-centricapproach? Examples:

– Find all documents with “tax*” in the title (i.e., tax,taxes, taxing, taxed) and that contain “2004” in thedocument for the Jones matter.

– Find all pleadings that contain “malpractice”within 10 words of “negligence” that were done inthe last 6 months for your insurance client.

– Find all the emails from John Smith relating tothe Haversack matter.

(5) Do you want full version control without havingto have a separate file for each version? You want tobe able to find them all at once and if necessarycompare different versions.

(6) Do you want to be able to create security groupsfor specific files and/or departments (e.g., HumanResources, Management Committee)?

(7) Do you want an audit trail of who worked on adocument, printed it, copied it, etc.?

A DIY document management system will do noneof these things. Trying to create one will simply bevery time-consuming, and the minute-here, minute-there adds up very rapidly.

Optional

Many practice management programs, such as TimeMatters, Amicus or Practice Master include a“document management” feature. In these cases,every time a user saves a document, they mustactively select some form of a “save (or link) todocument management” function. By doing nothingand just hitting the “save” button, users will notmake use of the document management functional-


ity. Optional systems depend on the human elementto use the system in a disciplined fashion.

Higher-end systems that are based on an expandeduse of the Windows Explorer interface, such asLaserfiche or Document Locator usually also sufferfrom this problem (in some cases they can be config-ured to “lock down” the systems – but it is not thedefault).

In my experience Murphy'slaw condemns any “optional”system to failure at key junc-tures and therefore to be littlebetter than no system at all. Ifusers can decide not to save adocument into the system, they will of course makethis decision with a key document at a key moment.Therefore any “search” is not in fact searching allyour documents and the key omissions make thesystem fatally flawed. Mandatory systems are some-times referred to, in honor of Jerry Seinfeld, as“Network Nazi” systems.

Obligatory

Obligatory systems take over the way you open andsave documents, emails, faxes, scans, and Webpages. Any time you want to open or save a docu-ment from any application on your desktop (withthe exception of most database programs), instead ofthe program’s native screen, you see the documentmanagement screen. Thus users cannot decidewhether or not to save a document into the DMS,they are obliged to do so. The DMS acts as a trafficcop at the crossroads of what used to be known asthe “information highway” – controlling, organizingand directing the flow and access of documents andinformation to where they need to go.

While sometimes initially perceived as an intrusioninto work habits in fact obligatory systems are muchmore reliable. There is never any question wheresomeone has “put” a document – it is always in thesystem. Furthermore, with full-text searching it isvirtually impossible to “lose” a document.

The main programs of this type in the legal marketare Worldox, Interwoven’s WorkSite and Hum-mingbird’s DocsOpen/DM5.

Static

Static systems such as Laserfiche and DocumentLocator depend on a two-step “store and forward”process. First you save or scan a document, then you

port it over to the DMS.These systems are mostheavily used where the over-whelming body of documentsare scanned forms: Town orCounty records (tax, real es-tate, etc.), Hospital or Health

Care provider records (doctors’ or patients’ records),or Banks (various loan applications and similaritems).

They are not designed for the creation of legaldocuments or the integration of email. In fact,Laserfiche’s 100 plus page “Overview of DocumentManagement” barely even mentions the integrationof email, a critical function for law firms.

Cloud (Internet-Based)

There is a lot of debate about whether the future isin the clouds – more specifically the Internet“Cloud.” Will most or all applications becomeweb-based? For better or worse, the answer is“probably.” From a law firm’s point of view there aretwo major problems with this trend.

The first is the sad state of “high-speed” internetconnectivity in the U.S. A recent article by NobelPrize winning economist Paul Krugman in the NewYork Times (July 23, 2008) noted that broadbandconnection rates in France are three times as fast asin the US and in Japan they are 12 times as fast.French broadband can reach speeds of 18Gps -which is about 15-20 times faster than a standard“high-speed” connection in the US. In Sweden, atest network can download at 40Gps - so you candownload an entire movie in 2 minutes.

Murphy's law condemns any“optional” system to failure atkey junctures.


The more important impediment, however, is whatlawyers sell. Lawyers do not sell cars, soap ormanufactured goods. They don’t even sell serviceslike landscape gardeners or maids. They sell docu-ments – contracts, agreements, court pleadings, andso on. So asking lawyers to store their critical“product” on the Internet understandably meets withsignificant resistance. If a manufacturer loses itsdocuments, it still has its product inventory. Forlawyers, however, their documents are their productinventory, so losing them is more akin to having alltheir manufacturing facilities burn to the ground.

True, storing documents on the Internet has atremendous convenience, especially for firms withmultiple offices. But for this to truly work for lawfirms, there has to be a way to have real time replica-tion between the internet and on-site servers. Someinternet-based backup companies do this now, butin reverse: the working copy is in the law office, the

backup is on the internet. A company that wouldreverse the process might be able to make majorinroads into law firms.

NetDocuments is an internet-based documentmanagement system (now controlled by Lexis-Nexis) that seems to be well on the way to having apractical solution that fulfills these requirements. Itis internet based, but it also has a module that letsyou “mirror” the internet files to a server at yoursite. NetDocuments was formed by formerSoftSolutions employees (the granddaddy of alldocument management systems) and has come along way toward offering a practical solution. If youdon’t have a visceral negative reaction to storing yourwork product on the Internet, where it might bevisible to all and sundry, this is worth exploring.

No doubt other Web-based systems will be spring-ing up in the months to come.

Thinking About Buying a Document Management System

Most vendors focus on feature lists that promise todo just about everything except have coffee ready foryou in the morning. Forget the feature list and focuson your wish list (you may also of course want toaugment your wish list by items on the vendor’s list).To the extent a vendor’s feature list does not matchyour wish list, consider a vendor that more closelymatches your needs.

Wish Lists and Flexibility

In business, there is a principle that you never startnegotiating from your fallback position. The same istrue here. Start from your maximum wish list. Youmay not eventually want to devote the time andmoney to implementing all of it, some things onyour wish list may not be realistic, but at least youwon't be in a position of saying three months fromnow, “If only I had....”

The list of what you want a DMS to do mirrors thelist of your existing aggravations. Plus, the process ofcreating a wish list helps to focus your thinking andwill improve the implementation. On the otherhand, you also need to be flexible. Remember theold adage that while you should be able to get 90%of what you want from a given software package,getting the other 10% is likely to be very difficultand very expensive. So you also have to prioritizeyour wish list: which items are critical and whichwould you be willing to give up in a pinch?

Note that the characteristics of your wish list willhave to be explored in greater detail in the process ofimplementation: it is utopian to try to develop a fullimplementation program before you even commit tothe software. That said, what are some of the itemson a typical wish list?


Do you want better search capabilities? Both speedand the ability to do boolean searches can be impor-tant here (find a and b; a within x words of b, etc.).

By integrating email into the document manage-ment system, all the firm’semails become searchableand you can easily locate allemails concerning a givenmatter, regardless of whosent or received them. Out-look cannot do this.

It is important to have a firm-wide policy on email.The best option is to mandate moving all email intothe DMS. This makes all the email regarding aspecific matter available to everyone concerned withthat matter regardless of who sent or received it. Italso lightens the burden on Outlook/Exchange andgreatly facilitates ediscovery should the need arise.

Do you want to be able to access your documentsover the Web, from home or elsewhere? Do youwant to make specific documents of selected clientsavailable to them, again, over the Web?

A critical issue is whether you want to “lock down”the system, that is, oblige everyone to use it all thetime. Practice Management programs such as TimeMatters, Amicus Attorney or Practice Master offer

“document management” modules that are optional– users are not obliged to use them. Some higherend programs such as Laserfiche or DocumentLocator also do not lock down the system. Espe-

cially if a firm is highly com-partmentalized where eachpractice area (and sometimeseach individual attorney) “doestheir own thing,” this is a criti-cal issue to get agreement on.

Getting Buy-In

As with any other implementation, it is critical toget buy-in from key people and practice areas in thefirm. Who the “key people” are of course depends onthe firm. The list frequently includes at least theManaging Partner, various practice area heads, keyparalegals, senior “power users,” and so on. Theyneed to be aware of the issues described below andhow they will affect them. Thus when a firm has apresentation from a document management consul-tant or vendor, it should make sure that the atten-dance includes Senior/Managing Partners, OfficeAdministration, technologically inclined JuniorPartners or Associates, Paralegals and Administra-tive Staff. These are the people who can make orbreak an implementation and it is important toinvolve them from the beginning.

Actually Purchasing the Software

Once you’ve decided to bite the bullet in principle,how do you actually go about buying the software?

Since most major document management systemsoffer roughly equivalent functionality, the marginaldifference among them as far as your firm is con-cerned may be marginal. On the other hand, if thereis one feature you absolutely have to have that oneprogram has, but another one doesn’t, that may bea decisive factor, since the ROI on all these pro-grams is very short.

Other things being equal, cost is a significant factorto consider. “Cost” includes the base price of thesoftware, network hardware requirements (will youneed one or more additional servers to run thesoftware), local workstation requirements, the costof implementation/customization, and ongoingoverhead costs.

Leasing. One option may be to lease the hardware,software and even consulting time. This will provideyou with a fixed monthly cost over time, at a small

Never start negotiating froma fallback position ... startwith your maximum wish list.


premium (10-20%) over the cost of immediatepurchase. You should, however, be careful to use aspecialized leasing company rather than the leasingprograms of a hardware vendor as it will be lessexpensive.

Price of the Software. This obviously varies with thesize of the firm and the different products. There areseveral important questions to ask here, however:

! Is the price all-inclusive or is there a “base price”and then a bunch of additional modules? Fre-quently when a software vendor says a programwill do “x,” that involves an additional moduleand cost.

! Does the price of the software include technicalsupport and future upgrades? Worldox, forexample, includes future upgrades in the main-tenance fee; many other companies do not.

Cost of Implementation. There are three parts toimplementation: the cost of actual rollout, the costof customization, and training. Be sure to investi-gate the cost of customization carefully, especiallyfor higher end products where the quoted pricefrequently may not be the biggest part of your cost.And don’t forget training. Training may takeanywhere from a couple of hours to close to a fullday. Further, you want adequate floor support(depending on the size of the firm) after the actualrollout.

Ongoing Overhead/Administration. Depending onthe program, ongoing administration may be asignificant cost. For SQL-based product you are

likely to need at least a part-time dedicated adminis-trator, whether in-house or by using a consultant.

You should also factor ongoing training into theadministration costs. Brown-bag lunches to coverspecific or more advanced elements of a program arehighly desirable. Not only do they upgrade people’sknowledge, but they help insure that minimumstandards are met across the firm.

Consultants. Obviously you want to perform duediligence about any consultant: experience, certifica-tions, references, and so on.

If a consultant represents a single program, he or shemay have an ax to grind. Ask the consultant tocompare his product with competing products youare considering. Any consultant who refuses to dothis discredits himself: consultants are supposed toadvise you what is best for you, not what is best forthem.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of aconsultant is somebody you feel comfortable with(once the basic skills and experience are verified). Infact, I would even argue that choosing a consultantthat fits your firm could even strongly influencewhat program you decide to implement: a programwith fewer bells and whistles implemented by aconsultant you are comfortable with may be asuperior choice as opposed to a program that istheoretically “better,” when implemented by aconsultant who turns out to be a mistake. Remem-ber the old adage: a consultant is the person youbring in to clean up the mess created by the lastperson who called themselves that.


Implementing Document Management

There are no hard and fast rules when implementinga document management system, although experi-ence shows that some configurations tend to workbetter than others for most firms. Therefore I

focus on some general guidelines based on mywillexperience as a consultant with document manage-ment systems.

“Every site is a snowflake – unique.”

This frequently comes up in the form “our firm isunique in the way we work.” In a literal sense, this isof course true – every installation has tweaks anddetails that are unique. However, underlying thisuniqueness there are structures, typical patterns andcategories that, when understood, make it easier toget to the final “tweaking point” needed to roundout a good installation. Firms are not as different asthey sometimes like toimagine. Implementingdocument managementcould also serve as a start-ing point to reexamine afirm’s past practices thatmay have “grown liketopsy” and make themmore efficient.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Once you have a list, how exactly do you want thesystem to work? Do different practice areas/depart-ments require different settings or levels of security?It is important to look at this closely to distinguishbetween what a practice area or specific attorneysmight think they want and what they actually need.Does the firm have a strong management or does itmore resemble a series of medieval dukedoms, witheach “duke” ensconced in his castle on a hill (orcorner office)?

Thus the first thing to look at is the structure of thefirm. A boutique firm requires a much simpler

structure than a general firm with numerous differ-ent practice areas. For a larger firm, you also need toconsider whether the various practice areas are self-contained (in effect, the firm is a collection ofboutique firms) or intepenetrated, with secretariesand paralegals working for multiple practice areas.

This has consequences for the structure you wish toput in place, in particular whether you have one ormultiple “profile groups” (think of it as dividing upthe document store into different compartments).To the extent a particular department or practicearea wants it’s “own” profile group, it is important toexamine what is it about that area that requires adifferent or expanded set of information in theprofile. (“We’ve always done it that way” is not avery good answer if you cannot articulate why that isthe case.)

Most likely, you will want some additional profilesand levels of security for confi-dential information (Accounting,Human Resources, the firmManagement Committee, etc.) sothat only authorized personnelhave access to whole categories ofdocuments. In specific cases verysensitive areas of a practice (trusts

& estates; mergers & acquisitions) might need a“walled-off” area. Some programs also allow you tocreate an “ethical wall” for particularly sensitiveclients.

In addition, you need to address the issue of per-sonal information. How do you want to deal withusers’ requests for a space to store their “personal”stuff? Users will have questions such as “what aboutmy personal documents?” “I keep the partner’spersonal correspondence on my local hard drive,what will happen to that?” “I keep drafts on the harddrive and only put the final copy on the network.” Itis important to distinguish here between trulypersonal documents and “work in progress,” drafts,documents that are not done, etc. The latter areobviously part of the firm’s work product. If these

Answers to design issues muststart from an analysis of thefirm’s structure and culture.


issues are not addressed beforehand, you could havea revolt on your hands. The actual answer you giveis less important than addressing the issue – and youmay also be led to modify the structure of yoursystem to accommodate certain concerns or require-ments.

The answer to these issues depends on the firm’sculture. In principle any documents produced on acomputer owned by the firm belong to the firm.However, this principle is most often honored in thebreach.

Finally, keep in mind that there is a trade-off be-tween security and convenience. If you lock a systemdown too much, it can have a serious effect onusability. You need to establish your comfort levelhere.

Involve End Users; Set Expectations

If end users are taken by surprise when a system isrolled out, you could be in for a rocky implementa-tion. In addition, Partners who are used to certainwork habits (and may not want to “share” theirdocuments) may have to modify old habits, so it iscritical for Partners to “buy in” to document man-agement.

One way to further this goal is to put out a memoalong the lines:

“We are considering implementing a documentmanagement system. We expect it will addressthe following issues that have been plaguing thefirm....

“In addition, the DMS will provide the follow-ing enhancements/benefits that will make yourwork easier...

“In order to properly implement the system,users will be expected to conform to the follow-ing guidelines in terms of personal or othernon-business related documents...

“Please let the office administrator know of anyconcerns you have or additional issues you feelshould be addressed...”

While this process may be somewhat foreshortenedin a smaller firm, the basic issues should be ad-dressed, even if informally.

Designing the System

The technical aspects of the system – where will thedocuments be stored, whether a new server will berequired (most DMS’s require a separate server,Worldox is almost alone in not normally having thisrequirement) – should be decided between your ITpeople and your consultant.

Document management systems create “profiles” or“templates” to facilitate organization and fastersearching. These typically include Client, Matter,Document Type, Author and sometimes Typist inaddition to the document description. You need todecide whether this is adequate or whether you havespecial needs. For example, a corporate legal depart-ment might want to also categorize documents bythe state whose law governs the document.

Questions you need to answer include the following(which have been examined in more detail else-where):

! How many different profiles/templates do youneed? Separate ones for HR, Accounting,Management Committee, etc. What specialrequirements might mandate the need for aseparate template for separate practice areas?

! How do you wish to deal with personal docu-ments? A subset of this issue is how do youwant to deal with personal business by seniorpartners or others?

! How do you want to deal with email?

! How will you deal with, e.g., faxes, saved Webpages, and other types of electronic information?

! What additional functionality do you wish toinclude (brief or form banks)?


On the other hand, you want to avoid “design bycommittee” like the plague. At some point, a firmsimply has to designate a small group of people tocome to a decision.

Old (“Legacy”) Documents

A major issue when implementing a documentmanagement system is what to do with your olddocuments. It is a safe bet most firms will neveraccess up to 75-80% of the documents createdbefore the document management system is imple-mented. I recommend setting up a “legacy” categoryfor your old documents. Force users to move oldfiles into the new system the first time they accessthem. This will be far less time-consuming (andhence less expensive) than trying to convert your olddocuments.

If you are switching from one document manage-ment program to another, however, there may beconversion utilities available to convert your oldinformation. This would also be a question to askvendors during the initial evaluation: can theirprogram convert the structure of your current sys-tem?

Integrating Other Software

Make sure that the proposed document manage-ment program will integrate not only with MicrosoftOffice or WordPerfect products, but Acrobat,various scanning products, cost recovery modulessuch as eCopy or Equitrax or other specializedprograms that the firm uses. One frequently-usedprogram you should explicitly check on if you use itis DeltaView (Workshare). If the program does notnatively integrate, can integration be easily addedwithout costly additional custom programming?Worldox, for example, integrates with over 50programs, and tech support can usually integrate itwith almost anything in a half hour or so. Mostdocument management programs cannot integratewith database programs such as those commonlyused for e.g., real estate closings, precisely becausethey are databases, not individual files (although theoutput as PDF or Word file can be saved with the

DMS. Lastly, some utility programs, such asActiveWords, may conflict with the documentmanagement system.

Email

Client-related emails sent or received by variouspeople in the firm should be integrated into thedocument management system so that they areavailable to everyone working on a case. Outlookmakes it difficult to organize emails around clientsand matters.

The firm needs to establish policies for how emailsare stored in the document management system.You want to make it possible for people to excludepersonal email, items from listservs or RSS feeds,spam, etc. You also need to decide how to deal withexisting email stores. This critical topic is examinedat greater length below, especially since it is fre-quently an area of resistance from attorneys whohave been using Outlook as their “document man-agement system” and may have 5-10,000 emails inOutlook.

Scanning

The desire to manage scanned documents frequentlyprovides the impetus to adopt a document manage-ment program. Developing an efficient workflow forscanned documents is a major issue and is dealt withbelow.

Working Remotely/Web Access

Virtually all attorneys these days work from home atleast part of the time. What provisions will youmake for attorneys to access the document manage-ment system remotely from home?

Remote Access to the DMS. Smaller firms may useprograms such as GoToMyPC or LogMeIn, whichenable the user to log in to their own desktop andwork as if they were at the office.

Larger firms are more likely to use a VPN connec-tion, Terminal Services or a Citrix installation,which accomplish the same thing.


Web Access. For instances where this is not feasible,most systems provide some form of Web Access(generally as an additional module). This enablesusers to log in just to the document store via abrowser. Some programs, such as Worldox, use“pure” browser access – no other program is re-quired. Others require a small program to be in-stalled on the home machine or laptop which maylimit access (if you are in an Internet café in Italy,say). Lastly, you should enquire about access to yourdocument store via PDA. Ideally, this should bedevice-independent: Blackberrys, Treo, WindowsMobile, iPhones, Gphones. You don’t want to tellan attorney they have to give up their Blackberry inorder to access their documents! While reading andediting documents on a PDA is not very realistic,the ability to review documents and email themfrom your PDA can be very valuable.

Extranets. It should also be possible to set up an“Extranet:” remote access to restricted areas of yourdocument store so that specified clients can accessthose documents (and only those documents) thatthe firm makes available to them.

All these functions will become increasingly impor-tant in the future. While you may not choose toimplement this functionality at the present time, youshould make sure it is available for future use.

Brief Banks/Forms

Most firms do not take the time and effort to createbrief banks, boilerplate or form documents. Instead,attorneys “recollect” a similar document that couldbe modified for a new case. This process is prone toerror (“old” language overlooked and left in thedocument by mistake). And not only are memoriesfaulty, but this process leaves the firm without“firm-standard” boilerplate for certain purposes. Inaddition, standard form documents can serve as avaluable resource in training new attorneys: “this ishow we have resolved this issue in the past and hereis why.” This issue is dealt with in more detailbelow.

Training

Most document management systems are suffi-ciently easy to use that many firms do not feeltraining is necessary. However, in the process of“hand crafting” ways to keep track of documents inthe past, users will inevitably have created proce-dures for naming and storing documents that mayhave been useful to specific individual users, but areeither not necessary, inefficient, or even counter-productive in the context of a document manage-ment system. In addition, most users do not get themost power out of the program’s capabilities. Aswith any other program, adequate training canmultiply the effectiveness of a document manage-ment system many times.

Followup

Followup can be just as important as the initialtraining. One of the problems with any rollout isthat after the initial training, users get “up to speed”and are able to do their basic work. However, veryrapidly, the minimum they need to know to get theirwork done becomes the maximum they actually doknow. And over time, that knowledge tends toshrink due to natural entropy (the tendency of anysystem or body of knowledge to deteriorate withoutoutside input). Most users do not explore further,increase their knowledge or find better ways to dothings. There are two kinds of followup that Irecommend. First, after the initial rollout andtraining, circulate items from a “Tips and Tricks”list via email about two or three times a week for amonth or two. This has two functions:

! First, it reminds users of things they may haveheard during training but forgotten. It tends toboth reinforce training and expand their knowl-edge at an early stage (it is much more difficultlater on).

! Second, it encourages them to believe thatpeople are paying attention, willing to addressissues, etc. It encourages users to ask morequestions and helps fight passivity.


The second is to sponsor “brown bag lunches” on anongoing basis, perhaps every three or six months,where particular topic or topics are explored. Again,this serves to reinforce and expand knowledge,

and because one person’s question will have actuallyoccurred to several people, you get a reinforcementeffect that tends to expand users’ knowledge andhelp keep all your users on the same page.

Basic Functionality

Searching

What do you do when you want to find a documentif you are not using document management? Obvi-ously if you remember where you put it, that's great.But what if somebody elseworked on it initially, how doyou know where they put it, howthey named it, or whether theyjust put in on their C: drive in“My Documents?” Sooner orlater, you have to search for adocument.

Think of the sum total of your firm's documents(generally referred to as the “document store”) as ahuge book. If you want to find a particular docu-ment (chapter, passage), there are several ways toproceed.

1. You can read the whole book. This is what theWindows search function does. As one potentialclient said to me: “I don't have a problem with this– I just start the search and go get a cup of coffeeand by the time I'm back, it's done.” May be. Butpretty wasteful of valuable time – besides, how manycups of coffee can you drink in one day?

2. You can look through the table of contents. Thisis like looking through the directory structure(assuming it is organized in a reasonable fashion).Better, but still pretty time consuming on a regularbasis.

3. You can look in the index. This is what you dowith full-text desktop indexing programs likeGoogle or Yahoo. However, these programs maynot index all your files, and they likely will not indexfiles on your server. The problem with these

searches is that they cast avery broad net: you have tocheck the “hits” and if youare not careful you get manymore hits than you reallywant. There is no easy wayof adding a “matter” cate-gory to narrow down thesearch. As anyone who hasdone substantial research on

the Internet or on-line services like Lexis or West-law knows, this kind of search is a fine art.

4. You can specify “look in Client X's files for theChapter called 'Pleadings' for the term 'excitedutterance'.” Or, find all the retainer agreements witha specific term in them. This is what a true docu-ment management system like Worldox does.

Good searches start with good naming conventions.The trick here is to put anything unique about thedocument in the description. If you want to do amore extensive “key words” listing, use the com-ments field. You do NOT need to put e.g. “letter” orthe date or the client matter number in the descrip-tion, since these can be searched for in other fieldsin your profile. You might want to put the clientname, or the name of the person a letter is addressedto in the description. If a brief deals with particular

You should be able to searchfor e.g., “all the pleadings forClient X done in the last sixmonths for the term “excitedutterance.”


or unique points of law, put those in the commentsarea.

When searching a DMS you can combine profileand field information. For example, you can com-bine a search in the description field with full textsearch in the text field and/or limit a search to aspecific client, time period, etc. Most DMS’s alsohave full boolean search capability (AND, OR,NOT, A within X words of B) just as you wouldhave with Lexis or West. Some examples:

accident AND liability – will find documentscontaining both those terms (in the description or asa full text search)

accident NOT liability – will find documentscontaining “accident” but not “liability.”

Rost* – will find any word starting with “rost” (suchas Rostropovich). This is useful if you are not sureabout the spelling or you want to find variants ofwords. Some programs offer “stemming” or “soundslike” capabilities. However, this may significantlyincrease the size of your index and your responsetime. It is not always clear that this functionality isworth it.

accident w/10 amputation – will find occurrences of“accident” within 10 words of “amputation.”

Searches should search across all your different typesof information: documents, scans, faxes, email, savedWeb pages, and be able to combine profile (client/matter) information with types of documents andfull-text searches.

Lastly, for people who have to consult certain formdocuments frequently, or administrators, bookkeep-ers or HR personnel who want to be able to consultcertain forms, spreadsheets, etc. on a regular basis, a“quick and dirty” solution is to put a unique code inthe description field, such as “yyy.” If you do asearch for “yyy” you will find all the required docu-ments. You can then also create a bookmark for thatsearch so all your common documents can come upwith a single click of a button. This is the equivalentof putting specific frequently-used documents onthe desktop.

Viewing Documents

A good document management system will let youview documents without having to open them.When you see the list of documents a search hasfound, you should be able to open a viewer andscroll through the documents without having toopen them. This can be a great time-saver.

In addition, you should be able to cut and paste textfrom the viewer into whatever document you areworking on. So instead of opening a second docu-ment, finding the text, cutting and pasting and thenclosing the second document, it can all be donethrough the viewer.

Lastly, if you do a full-text search, the viewer shouldopen to the first “hit.” So if the first hit is on page 25of a 30 page document, you should be able to see itright away and not have to redo a search within thedocument. Desktop search applications generallyalso do this.

Archiving

Archiving used to be an issue in the days of limiteddisk space. Today, when you can get a 1 Terabytedrive for under $200, this is no longer the case.

However, you may still want to archive files to easethe load on your index (which typically takes upabout 20% of your total document store). It isimportant to be able to store your archived files off-line, on a NAS device or elsewhere. You will alsoneed to have ready access to archived files if needed.

Audit Trails

Many people initially say “why bother with audit-ing.” There are basically several types of answers tothis question, all having to do with administrativefunctions.

First, if you come in one morning and find that agiven document has been badly bolloxed up, you canfind out who last worked on it and better figure outwhat happened. The audit trail lets you see whoexactly has been working on a document.


Secondly, for administrators who wish to track theactivity of specific users, you can see what a givenperson has done for a day or time period. You canalso track whether employees have checked a docu-ment out, copied it off-line, etc.

Security

Generally speaking there are three categories ofsecurity, that is, three types of things to guardagainst:

! Carelessness. Users delete a file by mistake, drag& drop to the wrong place (and then the file is“lost”), etc.

! Hostile users and random intrusion. Somebodyhas decided to quit and says to themselves “let’ssee how much damage I can do.” Someone elsesees a spreadsheet labeled “personnel salaryschedule” and says “gee, let’s see how mucheverybody makes.”

! Targeted intrusion. This is the equivalent ofindustrial sabotage and is generally not much ofan issue for smaller firms. It can be an issue forlarger firms with high-dollar clients, cases, etc.For example, trusts and estates work for the verywealthy; high-end mergers and acquisitions, andso on.

So when you speak of “security” you have to keep inmind what level you are speaking about. Also,remember that the more secure a system is, the moreannoying it is to use (witness the Vista UAC set-tings).

The ability to password protect a document can beuseful although subject to a number of limitations.Commercial password breakers abound, so althougha password may protect the document from casualintrusion, it does nothing to protect against deter-mined intrusion.

Document management systems typically allow forvery granular security, so that a firm can, for exam-ple, prevent all but designated users from deletingfiles. And since everything goes through the DMS,“drag and drop” errors are eliminated.

A second level of security is to assign a specificdocument to a group of people, or make it read onlyto everyone else. This gives both accessibility to theproper people and prevents casual errors such assaving a form or boilerplate document with revisionsinstead of doing a “save as” and making it a newdocument.

You can also create different profile or templategroups and store the documents in entirely differentlocations. This is appropriate for example forAccounting/Bookkeeping; Human Resources, thefirm’s Managing Committee and similar types offunction. Only certain people even see those docu-ments in the first place.

Lastly, many document management systems tie inwith Active Directory, and apply security settingsdetermined by the DMS to the specific files ordirectories using Active Directory.

Taking it with You

So you have a Paperless Office (or nearly so). Allyour emails are saved, documents, incoming itemsthat have been scanned, etc. Since copies of files willinevitably be taken outside from the firm, you needto establish policies governing how off-line docu-ments will be treated.

As part of this policy, the firm should considersecurity provisions for laptops and USB keys, espe-cially in view of the number of laptops that arestolen every year and how easy it is to lose a USBkey. At a minimum, data taken on a USB keyshould be encrypted.

You want to take your whole case with you to courton a laptop, CD, DVD, etc. There are a number ofoptions for accomplishing this, depending on whatyour current configuration is.

Larger firms with a higher volume of litigation, willhave invested in a true litigation support/trial prepa-ration software such as CT Summation, Trial-Works, or Verdict Systems “Sanction.” So thequestion really comes up only if you need to do thison a less costly scale.


If you are using a document management systemsuch as Worldox, you can simply export the entirecase to the hard drive of your laptop (or even a flashdrive), and retain all the organization, searching, etc.of the DMS. This is by far the easiest and mostefficient way to proceed. In fact, if you need to takean entire case to court on a regular basis, it could bea decisive reason to invest in a document manage-ment system.

If you have a do-it-yourself handyman’s solution,you can copy the entire directory containing thecase. Or better, use one of a number of tools avail-

able to synch the directory in question either withyour laptop or an external hard drive. Putting in onan external hard drive has the advantage that you arenot dependant on your specific laptop, you canaccess the files from anywhere. The big disadvan-tage is that they are easier to lose.

However, this solution then raises the issue of howyou efficiently organize and search for files. You canuse Copernic or a similar solution to full text indexthe files, but this does not allow for any otherorganizational principle (i.e., by client or matter).

Email

General

With the exponential growth of email, the ability tomanage email messages is criti-cal. Integrating email (and at-tachments) into a single docu-ment store together with docu-ments generated by the firm,scanned documents, discoverydocuments, and so on, becomesever more essential. To reallymerit the name, any document management systemmust adequately integrate email.

One key issue here is whether you can work withyour entire email inbox and subfolders, or whetherthe system will only deal with your inbox. Can yousend email messages alternatively from the docu-ment management program or just the emailsystem? The ease of automating the process ofmoving emails from your email system to the docu-ment management system is also extremely impor-tant for a system to be successful. Finally, there isthe critical question of which email systems theprogram will integrate with. Most currently do notintegrate with anything much besides Outlook and

GroupWise, although Worldox will also integratewith Lotus Notes. Hopefully, at least partial integra-tion with programs such as Gmail and Thunderbird

is in the wings.

There are two separate issueshere: dealing with futureemail (easy) and dealing withthe masses of past email,including archived email(harder).

Saving Outgoing Email

Saving outgoing email is relatively simple. TheDMS intercepts outgoing email (for example, bywatching the “sent items” box) and asks you whatyou want to do with it: copy or move it to the DMS,ignore it, etc.

By tracking emails and constructing what Worldoxterms “quick profiles” you should be able to auto-mate this process so that an email to person X isassigned (either automatically or by asking the user)to the same client/matter as previous emails to thisperson.

To really merit the name, adocument managementsystem must adequately

integrate email.


Some systems automate this more fully than others,but the automated systems (including some of thePractice Management programs such as Amicus orTime Matters) tend to make mistakes: for example,what if you regularly email the same recipient butpertaining to several different matters (which mightbe common in real estate or similar practices)? Howdoes the system “automatically” know which clientto assign the email to?

However, Quick Profiles or similar systems do letyou partially automate the process. They are alsoextremely useful in moving old emails to the DMS:properly set up, you can drag and drop multipleemails (in some cases hundreds at a time) to theQuick Profile and have them moved to the DMS.

Saving Incoming Email

Saving incoming email is much more complicatedthan saving outgoing email and is generally donemanually. Consider your incoming email: personalitems, spam, business email. Email from the sameperson may relate to different matters: how is asystem going to decide how to allocate that email?

Generally speaking the programs that have morerobust capacity for automating the saving of incom-ing emails, such as Interwoven, do so at a significantadditional cost. It is also frequently error-prone, soit would need to be examined carefully before beingimplemented Depending on your volume, thisadded automation might be a reason for adoptingone of those programs.

Saving Existing Email

Careful attention should be paid to the process ofgetting existing emails into the document manage-ment system. Many attorneys use Outlook as a junkcatch-all, and it is not unusual to find an attorneywith 5-10,000 emails in Outlook in a completelydisorganized fashion.

This will likely be an area of considerable attorneyresistance. Many attorneys are too used to workingin a specific way and using Outlook as their “docu-ment management” system. On the up side, most

attorneys readily see the tremendous advantage tothe fact that all emails concerning a specific case ormatter will now be available to everyone with appro-priate rights, regardless who sent or received them.No more additional emails asking who got the emailor yelling down the hall to locate the email.

It is critical to make it easy for them to move exist-ing emails into the DMS. Attorneys who find thisprospect too daunting to even consider might bewell-served to have a secretary or paralegal come inon a weekend and spend several hours doing noth-ing but organizing and moving, say, the last 6months of emails to the DMS. In addition, you canset up what Worldox terms “Quick Profiles” so thatonce the initial setup is done, emails can simply bedragged and dropped to a specific matter withoutthe need to fill out profiles.

Generally, there are two ways to proceed. If theattorney is an organized type, with client sub-foldersin Outlook, or if the Firm has instituted publicfolders organized by client matters, then the emailscan be batch imported into a DMS. I have seenpeople import as many as 3,000 documents in asingle pass (though I recommend splitting it intosmaller batches).

If the attorney is a disorganized type, try sorting theemails by sender or recipient. The chances are thatmost of the emails to or from a given individualbelong if not to a single case, at least to a smallnumber of cases. This greatly simplifies the processof importing them.

Giving careful attention to these considerations canmake your implementation much smoother andresult in more satisfied users. Once again, buy-in iscritical.

Accessing and SavingArchived Emails

When a DMS is being installed, clients frequentlyask “what about my archived email?” There is a wayto deal with this although it requires a bit more


focus and concentration than “on the fly” integra-tion.

The trick is to restore access to the archive folderand then go from there. In Outlook, select File |Open | Outlook Data File. Choose to open the“archive.pst” folder. If your network administratorhas been storing archive files offline somewhere, youmay have to negotiate for the ability to do this.

Your “archive” folder appears at bottom of theOutlook Inbox and folders list. You can then openit up and move those files into the DMS. Again,depending on how your network is set up, this maytake some doing – but most network administratorswill be more than happy to do anything that reducesthe load on Outlook and the Exchange server.

Managing Email Attachments

Many emails are simple “transmittal emails:” “At-tached is the following document.” However, manyof them also have content linked to the document:“Attached is the document. What do you thinkabout the new section 27?” In the later case, youneed to maintain the link between the two as part ofan audit/evidence trail. So the question of managingattachments is as critical as the emails themselves.

Practice management programs such as AmicusAttorney or Time Matters typically require that yousave the email separately as a document before yousave the email because the email record is saved in adatabase table. There are third party utilities that letyou automate this process, but it is still an extra stepand additional expense.

When you save an email from Outlook intoWorldox, or other DMS, they save and index theattachments with the email. You can also save itseparately if you need to work on it. This has anumber of advantages. First, it saves the email in a*.msg file (not as part of a database), so it is alwaysaccessible – there is no database table to becomecorrupted. Second, by preserving the link betweenthe email and the attachment it leaves a trail that canbe valuable or even critical when it comes to elec-tronic discovery. Last, the process is much simplerand more streamlined than with most practicemanagement programs.

Many firms send their scanned documents and faxesto specific users as attachments. In this case, the bestprocedure is to save the attachment separately andthen just delete the email.

Scanning

A firm decides it “wants to start scanning” becausethat seems like the thing to do. But you have to

.define the content of this statement more closely

What exactly do you want to scan?

! Documents for discovery? Aside from the factthat discovery requests are likely to increasinglyrequire documents in their native format, this isan area that is most likely best handled by anoutside service bureau. The chances are that in-house scanning (perhaps done by paralegals) is

likely to be considerably more expensive an aservice bureau with very high-speed scanners,dual 30" monitors, and so on.

! Every piece of paper that comes through thedoor? Most firms do not really want to do this.But if you do, then you have a major issue ofhow you distribute the scans. Physical mail isrouted through a mailroom or secretaries. Howwill the scans be routed?

! Just the important documents that come in?Who decides this? What process is involved?


! For firms with relevant practice areas, doctors’reports or handwritten notes, accident reports,tax forms, property documents, and so on. Thatis, all the paper forms that just have to be im-aged and not necessarily OCR’d.

! What do you want to do with historical data(How do I get rid of all those file cabinets andboxes in a data center?). Here again, this may bea prohibitive undertaking, but a service bureaumay be the best solution.

Workflow

Workflow Issues – Email

An issue that comes up increasingly is how tomanage workflow and collaboration. On a primitivelevel this seems easy: you exchange documents, markthem up, make changes, etc.

It’s when you have to organize them that problemsarise. Document management systems provide aninitial basis for collaboration by organizing yourdocuments and implementing version control. Thislets you see which “versions” of document are savedon different dates and by whom. To the extent youare exchanging documents within the firm, youshould be able to email just a link to the document:various people can then make their changes and savethem as different version. This works on a one-to-one basis.

Very often, however, firms are exchanging docu-ments to outside counsel via email. They then getrevised versions back through email. You want tohave the ability to save those returned documents as

Ideally, the DMSversions of the original document.should be able to recognize that the return attach-ment is a version of the sent document and treat itaccordingly

The next level comes with the need to perform somesort of document comparison/track changes func-tion. If Word’s built-in functionality is adequate (formany people it is not), fine. Otherwise you will needsome third-party add-in such as DocsCorp’sCompareDocs, iRedline from Esquire Innovationsor the 800 lb. gorilla, DeltaView/Workshare.

Perhaps the most difficult subject, however, isexactly how do you exchange documents? And whatif multiple people are making simultaneous revi-sions? You have an initial document. Version 1 iscreated by editor 1. Version 2 is created by editor 2but does not incorporate the change of Version 1.And so on. This scenario can get very complex veryquickly. Generally, somebody has to coordinate allthe changes (by hand).

As a frequent proponent of “less is more” I wasintrigued by the suggestion, in the recent book byDennis and Tom Mighell, The Lawyer’s Guide toCollaboration Tools and Technology, that you putthe entire document in a table with the text in theleft column and comments in the right column. Thismakes it easy to look at the comments and relativelyeasy for somebody to coordinate the changes.

Workflow Issues – Scanning

One of the main problems in the process of going“paperless” (or “PaperLESS” as Ross Kodner likes tosay) is the thorny issue of workflow. As scanningbecomes more and more prevalent, there are asignificant number of workflow issues that need tobe addressed. The bottom line is that if you aredealing with a large number of files, it is imperativeto set up the workflow correctly, otherwise you willwind up wasting hours of time.

The first issue is the question of large-volume vs.desktop scanners. Copier companies are increasingselling scanning modules. These are very fast, andideal for large documents, but they suffer from twodefects. First, they are inefficient for small volumes,

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since the user has to get up from their desk, go tothe scanner/copier, reset it, scan (usually to thenetwork, sometimes emailing the scan to them-selves), then reset it back to copying, return to theirdesk, retrieve the document and save it.

The second issue is that while high-speed scannersclaim to produce “PDF”s in fact they are frequentlyproducing image-only PDFs, which cannot be textsearched. Therefore a second piece of software isusually required to OCR the PDFs so that they aretext searchable. This should be determined whenconsidering the purchase of one of these machines.

If you have a desktop scanner, the situation issomewhat better, since you will be able to scandirectly to PDF, then save the PDF file whereveryou want.

For most firms, the bestsolution is to use both: usethe large, fast central scannerfor big jobs and a smallerdesktop scanner for shorterdocuments such as letters. This also means that theperson processing and scanning the mail (for exam-ple) does not have to get up from their desk to scansmall items.

Where are you going to put the scanned documentsand how are you going to organize them? How doyou route today’s scans in a fashion analogous torouting physical mail? At this point, the need for afull-fledged document management system such asWorldox, Interwoven’s Worksite or Hummingbird(Docs Open) becomes critical. Otherwise the vol-ume becomes overwhelming and as someone said,you can’t automate chaos.

There are three or four logical steps when you scana document:

(1) Scanning the document, i.e., running it throughthe scanner;

(2) OCR’ing the document (this is the most time-consuming part of the equation); and

(3) Saving the document to the DMS or elsewhere.

(4) Finally, depending on the implementation,deleting the original scan to avoid duplicates.

For some documents you can omit step two (re-ceipts, handwritten notes, etc.), but if you want theresulting document to be searchable, you need toOCR it, and this is the most processor-intensive andtime-consuming piece of the equation. Since thewhole point of fully automating your documentstore (documents, scans, emails) is to have every-thing searchable, this should be done an overwhelm-ing majority of the time.

When you consider the entire operation, to theextent that you can off-load parts of this process toa background or automated function, you can savesignificant amounts of time.

Step 1. Actual scanning. If youuse a large-volume multi-func-tion machine as scanning, thereis the workflow issue indicatedabove. People have to get upfrom their desk, go to the scan-

ner, scan, go back to the desk and save or manipu-late the scanned document. Due to their highscanning speeds (sometimes hundreds of pages perminute), multi-function machines are good for bigdocuments, but quite inefficient for, say, one-pageletters.

Step 2. OCR. This is the most time-consumingpart of the process and the part that it is easiest tooff-load to an automated background operation.The major OCR programs, Abbyy and OmniPage,let you set up a “watch” directory and you can thenschedule the OCR, even for off hours. Larger-scaleprograms such as eCopy or pdfDocs will also let youdo this.

3. Saving to Document Management. If you areusing Worldox and the eCopy cost recovery system,an elegant system is available from Lofflerwww.loffler.com. The “connector” takes over thescanning process, when you start the scan, youprofile it into the Worldox system. There is no“middleman” or interim process. Depending on

You need a good workflow: You can’t automate chaos.

http://www.loffler.com.


volume, it can be well worth the cost.http://connectors.loffler.com/

There is software available that will considerablyautomate this process, but the user is still left withthe chore of retrieving the document and saving toa document management system or to some otherspecified location.

Many firms “scan to email” and then have each usersave the scanned attachment individually. While thishas certain advantages (the user knows where theattachment belongs), it is less efficient on a largescale and should be reviewed carefully.

4. Cleanup. Unless you adopt a large-scale solu-tion, you will be left with the task of cleaning up theintervening scans after they have been saved. If youuse HotDocs, more recent versions have a pdf driverthat will let you save successive scans to the samedocument name. You can then “Save As” and putthe document into the document store withoutworrying about it.

Obviously, not all of these options apply to every-one, but adopting even some of them can make your

process a lot more efficient. The most importantthing is to look closely at workflow when imple-menting scanning.

Workflow – Forms Approval

There is another form of workflow that a documentmanagement system may either not handle orhandle only with a costly additional module. That isrouting forms, applications, and so on to variousparties for review and approval. This is an areawhere the “static” DMS’s such as Laserfiche tend tobe superior because they have developed proprietaryrouting mechanisms.

At a lower end, you can also use the “routing slip”functionality in Outlook – through version 2003.However, the routing slip was eliminated fromOutlook 2007 on the grounds that not very manypeople used it (true) and therefore eliminating itwould “improve the user experience.” (!) See Micro-soft KB article #179199

Other

Brief Banks – Why Aren’t They More Common?

Every time I set up a document management systemfor a firm, I try to encourage it to create a “BriefBank” or “Form Bank” – a set of standard boilerplateand forms that incorporates the best language andprovisions that the firm has come up with over aperiod of time.

Doing this fulfills four main functions:

1) It standardizes the forms, contracts, agreements,responses to interrogatories, etc. that the firm uses.In so doing, it also improves the overall quality of

the firm’s product, since it helps ensure that some-body does not re-use an old, outdated or supercededdocument. In many firms, individual users havetheir “own” forms – consolidating them wouldobviously be to everyone’s advantage. Of course thisdoes not address the issue of dysfunctional firmswhere one attorney wants to use one font, andanother attorney insists on a different font (and thesame with forms, provisions, etc.).

2) It increases productivity, since attorneys do nothave to rely on their memory and “hunt around” forthe most appropriate document in a given situation.

3) It decreases errors (thus also increasing productiv-ity). An attorney would no longer have to worry

http://connectors.loffler.com/

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179199.aspx#BKMK_Removed


about forgetting to change certain names, pronouns,etc. since it would be a “fill in the blank” type form.

4) Training. A brief bank provides excellent trainingfor new attorneys: “here is the language we haveworked out for this kind of motion and here is why.”

Despite the overwhelming arguments in favor ofdoing this, very few firms seem to get around to it,although many paralegals have developed their ownstandard private forms. Why is this?

I believe it is largely due to the well-known fact thatwhen considered as business propositions, manysmaller firms are very poorly managed. Law Schoolsdo not have courses in managing a business. Inparticular, they almost never have a technology plan,or consider even an approximate Return on Invest-ment analysis of a new system. This is, however,changing due to increased pressure on law firms toincrease productivity.

A more far-seeing analysis, was provided one time ina firm I was working for. When I suggested a newsoftware program, the name partner thought aboutit and said “No, I don’t think we can do that rightnow, but keep the suggestions coming because everysoftware program I DON’T own presents a potential

competitive advantage to adversary law firms.”

Document Assembly

Although document assembly programs and rou-tines are not part of document management per se,it is worth considering them at the same time, sincethey are arguably the area that provides singlegreatest savings of time and increase in productivityand quality of the final product. Yet many, if notmost small firms do not avail themselves of thisfunctionality.

Full-blown document assembly programs such asHotDocs can be fairly pricey to implement. On theother hand, I had a client that did Estate Planningwho spent close to $5,000 developing a wills pack-age. But the end result was that it cut the time ittook him to generate the package from over an hour

to about 3 minutes! He rapidly recovered the ex-pense.

Even without investing in a program like HotDocsthere are a number of lower-end document assemblyapproaches that will save tremendous time andmoney.

If you are using a practice management programsuch as Amicus Attorney, Time Matters, or PracticeMaster, use the built-in document assembly rou-tines. These will enable you to pull informationalready in the program and insert it into templates.

Even without these, develop templates in Word orWordPerfect to automate letterhead and basic letters(everybody does retainer agreements!). Even a smallinvestment here will result in dramatic savings,including the cost of pre-printed letterhead andhaving it reprinted every time there is a change.

Lastly, “auto-text” programs such as Active Wordscan be used to automate entire clauses of letters, akind of primitive document assembly. Thus youtype “sig” and Active Words expands this to thefinal blurb paragraph (“please feel free to call meat.... if you have any questions concerning thismatter”) as well as your signature block.

Collaboration

Collaboration and ways to manage it is a hot buzz-word. However, all the discussion of technical waysto manage collaborating on a document (such asputting it up on Google and letting everybody workat it), obscures a basic fact of law firm life: thepractice of law is fundamentally adversarial.

Thus there are two flavors of collaboration: ad-versarial and non-adversarial.

If you are collaborating on a document or agree-ment, ask yourself: does the person you are collabo-rating with represent your client or the other side?The types of openness and collaboration you arelikely to be willing to engage in differ dramaticallydepending on the answer to this question. This factis recognized by metadata management programs


such as iScrub which lets you adjust the amount ofmetadata is sent along with documents beingemailed as Active (standard firm defaults), Coopera-tor and Adversary.

Within larger firms, where associates are engaged ina frequently no-holds barred struggle to see who

makes partner, “collaboration” is always tinged witha healthy dose of competition.

So while collaborating on documents is essential,before jumping on the bandwagon, the means youchoose to do it must also be adjusted by an acuteawareness of with whom you are collaborating.

o


Appendix

Programs Referred To

Dedicated DM Programs Web SiteDocument Locator http://www.documentlocator.com/Documentum http://www.emc.comHummingbird (eDocs) http://connectivity.hummingbird.com/home/Interwoven (Worksite) http://www.interwoven.com/Laserfiche http://www.laserfiche.comNetDocuments http://www.netdocuments.comWorldox http://www.worldox.com

All-In-One (Optional DM)Amicus Attorney http://www.amicusattorney.comLegalFiles http://www.legalfiles.comOffice Tools http://www.officetoolspro.comPerfectLaw http://www.perfectlaw.comPractice Master http://www.stilegal.comProLaw http://www.prolaw.comTime Matters http://www.timematters.com/TrialWorks http://www.lawex.com/

Other ProgramsAbbyy FineReader http://www.abbyy.comActiveWords http://www.activewords.com/CompareDocs http://www.docscorp.comDeltaView/Workshare http://www.workshare.com/products/wsdeltaview/eCopy http://www.ecopy.com/HotDocs http://www.hotdocs.comiRedline http://esqinc.com/section/products/3/iredline.htmliScrub http://esqinc.comLoffler Connectors http://www.loffler.com/services/NetDocuments http://www.netdocuments.comOmniPage http://www.nuance.compdfDocs http://www.docscorp.comSanction by Verdict http://www.verdictsystems.com/Summation http://www.summation.com/

http://www.documentlocator.com/

http://www.emc.com

http://connectivity.hummingbird.com/home/

http://www.interwoven.com/

http://www.laserfiche.com

http://www.netdocuments.com

http://www.worldox.com

http://www.amicusattorney.com

http://www.legalfiles.com

http://www.officetoolspro.com

http://www.perfectlaw.com

http://www.stilegal.com

http://www.prolaw.com

http://www.timematters.com/

http://www.lawex.com/

http://www.abbyy.com

http://www.activewords.com/

http://www.docscorp.com

http://www.workshare.com/products/wsdeltaview/

http://www.ecopy.com/

http://www.hotdocs.com

http://esqinc.com/section/products/3/iredline.html

http://esqinc.com

http://www.loffler.com/services/

http://www.netdocuments.com

http://www.nuance.com

http://www.docscorp.com

http://www.verdictsystems.com/

http://www.summation.com/

Why Document Management: a White Paper

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