Peer to Peer Magazine

22 T he way we communicate at work is changing. On any given day, you likely use a personal device to check on work communications or engage with a colleague. You might even get office notifications on your Apple watch, Alexa or another internet of things gadget. The cloud is ubiquitous, and we interact with it multiple times a day for personal or business reasons. Propelled by the social, mobile and cloud revolution, you expect constant connectedness, rapid and succinct dialogues with colleagues and real- time decision-making. This evolution of communication methods and the demand for digitization are giving rise to a completely new category of technolo designed to boost employee productivity and efficiency. Organizations in other industries have already experienced the benefits of enterprise collaboration. In fact, for many businesses outside of the legal industry, a collaboration platform is no longer a nice-to-have, but rather essential for most IT and business leaders to compete effectively, and most use one not just internally but with customers and partners as well. Now this technolo is making its way to the legal sector. These platforms are built around team messaging and represent a convergence of forces to get legal teams interacting in a fluid manner with unstructured chat, supplemented with videoconferencing and document and screen sharing. For law firm leaders, the time is now to recognize the vital role that collaboration apps can play in your firm's overall IT strate. You need to understand how collaboration platforms function, what features to look for and how to transition current communication streams toward this innovative technolo to drive change within the firm. What is enterprise collaboration Collaboration platforms seek to aggregate within a single tool the messaging and document management systems that teams use every single day. First, collaboration platforms emphasize quick, concise messages, on-demand videoconferencing, screen and document sharing and ongoing team conversations. Available on your desktop, laptop or mobile device, collaboration platforms enable you to chat one-on- one or with a team. Messages and documents are organized by activity streams, which can consist of matters, projects or discussions. Further, with a click of a button, you can videoconference, email and share files. In fact, you can easily switch from messaging to email – no more logging in and out of various, unconnected systems. You can also poll a group for input by conducting surveys that update in real time, again all in a single platform. Finally, less time is wasted digging around for a document across various file servers and document management systems. In a collaboration platform, documents are stored securely in one place, keeping you organized and allowing you to search across everything using keywords. Further, for law firms these platforms can be integrated with existing business systems, such as document management, billing, calendaring, discovery and more. In the near future, such platforms will deliver access to a nearly endless array of other legal applications available in the marketplace – such as legal research, depositions, analytics and artificial Enterprise Collaboration Is Coming To a Law Firm Near You. Are You Ready? C A S E S T U D I E S B Y M I C H E L E C . S . L A N G E , E S Q The time is now to recognize the vital role that collaboration apps can play in your firm's overall IT strategy.

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