Peer to Peer Magazine

Spring 2016

The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association

Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/657874

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54 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SPRING 2016 and correspondence were scanned and added to these electronic systems, but most documents were maintained in physical files, which remained the system of record for most firms for many years. For any documents to be found, additional contextual information (metadata) had to be added manually using profile forms. These solutions offered security for electronic documents, but the filing process was time-consuming and error-prone. Lack of user cooperation oen resulted in empty metadata fields, which rendered the systems only partly useful for retrieving content once it was stored. Some early systems were plagued by fundamental stability and scaling issues and could not keep pace with the growth of electronic information volumes. The adoption of email spurred one of the biggest changes in the industry. By the late 1990s, "documents" The ways aorneys work and the types of information they work with are changing so rapidly that anything labeled "document management" will seem archaic within the next few years. Already, many firms' document management systems contain three to five times more email messages and other forms of communication than traditional documents. So why do we still call it document management? How did we get here? And what changes are now transforming this once staid corner of legal IT? A Brief History of Document Management The first generation of document management technology comprised simple digital "buckets" in which files could be placed. Documents created on early word processors were dutifully saved in these large "flat" systems for easy recall, versioning and security purposes. Some physical documents Document management is often cited (along with time and billing and email) as one of the top three mission-critical systems in most law firms. However, "document management" systems might soon cease to exist. Or more precisely, they will have evolved so significantly that they will scarcely resemble those of previous decades. by Dan Carmel DAN CARMEL Dan Carmel is the Chief Marketing Officer at iManage, where he is responsible for go-to-market and product strategies. Dan originally joined iManage in 2001 and returned to the company under HP in 2011. Before rejoining the iManage business at HP, Dan was CEO of Spring CM, a leader in SaaS ECM. Contact him at dan.carmel@imanage.com. The Evolution of Document Management: From Secure Container to Intelligent Productivity Application

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