publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/306297
ILTA WHITE PAPER: APRIL 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 8 1) EMAIL MESSAGES ARE DOCUMENTS, TOO. From a technical point of view, it is easy to make a distinction between an email message and a document. For a legal practitioner, that distinction is much less clear. Even if the goal of a legal engagement is the production of a document (i.e., a will, contract or patent application), the details of the process are often found in email and are therefore just as important to retain and organize as the document itself. Today's document management systems are adept at filing email as well as traditional documents. During an enterprise content management session at ILTA's 2013 annual conference, Sergey Polak, Manager of Enterprise Systems at Ropes & Gray, detailed his firm's explosive growth in email filing. Polak showed a graph that indicated the number of email messages filed in their DMS outnumbered documents by a ratio of about nine to one last year. He primarily credits the progressive type of attorney "who understands this is matter information that should be shared with the matter team and be in the system." Trend Tracker: The DMS is becoming an email management system. Products that make email filing easier will be a growth area for software vendors as law firms try to keep pace with the volume of email messages. 2) PHYSICAL COPIES NOT REQUIRED. Even though we are living in an increasingly digital world, the paperless office is far from a reality. Firms store paper records both onsite and off. When a matter is complete, lawyers have a financial incentive to move on to the next matter rather than spend non-billable time ensuring records for the completed matter contain all the essential documents and have been purged of all non-essential documents. In other words, it is easier for lawyers to say "keep everything, and send it offsite." Many firms are realizing this practice is unsustainable and are opting to scan paper documents and shred them rather than retain the physical copies. Steve Irons, President of DocSolid, says: "If I had to guess where most scanned paper is going today, I'd still say it's going to the wrong place. It's going to file shares and email, and it just sits there. However, more and more scanned paper is going into the DMS." Irons believes firms are beginning to understand the value of integrating their paper and electronic content "because they're not matter- centric if half their content is sitting three floors down in a file room." Trend Tracker: Records departments traditionally focused on paper and boxes will be replaced by information governance departments that leverage a DMS. There will be plenty of paper in law firms for working files; however, when it is time to store files, they will be scanned and stored in the DMS. Physical copies will be shredded as attorneys increasingly view paper as more trouble than it is worth. 3) MOBILE DEVICES IMPROVE ACCESS. Mobile devices have been commonplace in law firms for some time. Now that the screen size has increased, these devices can be used for more than just email; they can be windows into the DMS. Rather than carrying a briefcase full of documents to review, an attorney can simply retrieve documents from the DMS on an iPad or other mobile device. "We've been exposing our DMS content since the days BlackBerry ruled supreme," says Paul Wittekind, Director of Information Technology Services for Porzio, Bromberg & Newman P.C. "A good proportion of people found it FIVE DMS CHANGES FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS Security is not just a technology issue, it impacts firms trying to attract new business.