ILTA White Papers

www.iltanet.org metadata to facilitate the profiling and retrieval functions. The implementation of a system that could address all of these concerns was completed in Q2 of 2011. This solution was an industry first — deploying a SharePoint-based full lifecycle email management solution leveraging Handshake Software's Email Management Director (EMD) and the firm's SharePoint- enabled content pipeline. With this solution in place, users are now empowered with a feature-rich system that enables seamless profiling of content into SharePoint with attorney-friendly, drag-and-drop folders, the retrieval of content by the firm's matter-centric views and an enhanced point-and-click client-/matter-centric portal embedded within Outlook. This solution also includes a custom import of all users' existing email folder structures from Exchange 2003 into SharePoint. This new approach to dealing with email "in line" with other critical matter content and information has been very well received. Because the firm was familiar with SharePoint from their previous years of use, requests for improvement were turned around rapidly, which is virtually impossible with traditional legal industry content management solutions. Project Facts • The project took 1.5 years for development and planning. • 210 users were converted in two months. • We imported 7.1 million content items (4.5 million email messages with 2.6 million attachments) from Exchange 2003 to SharePoint — over 450GB of email. • SharePoint aggregated 24,000+ clients and 100,000+ matters into client-/matter- centric views. • A 180-day uniform retention policy was implemented for all firm personnel, reducing the Exchange store from 450GB to 75GB. 38 ILTA White Paper The Benefits • The solution saves time and frustration. Users do not have to jump between numerous applications to find email messages, documents, dockets, records or accounting information. • The design includes a user-friendly archive of Exchange 2003 imported email that mirrors the folder structure of the user's traditional Outlook folders. • Email content can easily be tagged at the folder level with a client and matter number, and shared with other individuals or groups. Once tagged with a client/matter number, these folders respond to client/matter search queries from anywhere within SharePoint. Within six months, attorneys rarely looked at their archive anymore, as those email messages were returned via a simple mouse click. • Attorneys see only their clients and matters. Secretaries see only their timekeepers with separate views for each timekeeper's clients and matters. • Metadata automatically gets assigned to data added to structured smart folders. • Items stored within SharePoint are easily retrieved at the client/matter level via a single click on a smart folder.

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