Extending the Value of Microsoft SharePoint in Law Firms with Open Text Legal Information Management A Joint Whitepaper. Published: October 2007

Transcription

1 Extending the Value of Microsoft SharePoint in Law Firms with Open Text Legal Information Management A Joint Whitepaper Published: October 2007

2 Open Text Notice: The information contained in this document represents the current view of Open Text Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Open Text must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Open Text, and Open Text cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This Whitepaper is for informational purposes only. OPEN TEXT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Open Text Corporation. Open Text Corporation may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Open Text, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property Open Text Corporation. All rights reserved. Open Text and LiveLink ECM are registered trademarks or trademarks of Open Text Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Microsoft Notice: The information contained in this document represents the current view of Open Text Corporation and Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This White Paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Excel, InfoPath, Outlook, SharePoint, and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m i

3 Contents Introduction... 1 Office Business Applications: Delivering Business Value in Law Firms... 2 Enhanced Business Value with Open Text Legal Solutions... 3 Automatically Generated Matter Sites... 4 Metadata Management... 7 Enhanced Matter Subscription Capabilities... 7 Search and Retrieval... 9 Enhanced Records Management Enhanced Archiving Capabilities Rich Management Features Ethical Walls to Defend Against Conflicts Advanced Matter-Centric Reporting Unique Document Reference/Identifier Powerful Auditing and Tracking Capabilities Summary/Conclusion w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m ii

4 Introduction In today s competitive environment, lawyers are even more dependent on IT than they have ever been and investment in the right IT strategy has a significant bearing on the productivity of a law firm. Rather than throwing money at the problem by looking for the one perfect system, firms are focusing on making their existing systems work more effectively together and striving to ensure they deliver maximum business value to the practice. In order to maximize their investments, most firms have chosen to adopt a best of breed strategy. This translates to multiple applications from various vendors that allow end users to perform their day to day tasks in the most efficient and convenient manner possible. However, this has a downfall in that lawyers typically need to get information from multiple applications throughout the day. Billing information, work product, saved s, matter contacts, forms, and other elements are stored in different repositories and lawyers often spend a lot of time trying to get the full picture of their matter. Having to launch various applications and navigate through complicated menu systems is a frustrating and repetitive task. In the business of law, time is money. Time spent looking for information is money wasted. Meanwhile, firms are trying to get a handle on user satisfaction and have been very quick to examine familiar tools and what they have to offer. According to the ILTA 2007 Technology Survey, 95% of respondents are using Microsoft Word as their primary word processing tool; close to 90% using Microsoft Outlook and 22% using Microsoft SharePoint as their intranet portal leveraging the applications that the users know best is a tactic that supports user adoption of new business applications and business processes. The result is an emerging class of applications called Office Business Applications (OBA). OBAs marry user familiarity with the power of the Microsoft Office System with the investments and value frequently underutilized in line-of-business applications, such as a law firm s billing system. With the large number of applications running in the firm today, IT is looking for easier deployments. In today s global environment where a typical large firm has offices across the globe, trying to design a firm wide deployment strategy is a daunting task. IT would like to leverage its investment in existing products and deal with fewer vendors. These vendors must collaborate to design solutions that most effectively meet their customers business needs. Compounding the challenges of executing on the ideal IT strategy, the amount of content, especially , is growing exponentially. According to recent CIO Magazine research 1, it is estimated that over the next seven years, a company with 20,000 employees will have to save approximately 4.5 billion s and that over the course of days or even hours, it must be able to search through them and find those relevant to a specific request for information. Managing s is the number one issue that law firms face today and IT is looking for the best way to manage the volume, categorization and retrieval of . Based on the ILTA 2007 Technology Survey, respondents listed archiving, retention, retrieval and compliance as their biggest support challenges by far. In fact, when asked what their firm s biggest technology annoyance was, management was the top vote-getter. When the nearly 60 percent of participants who stated they had no current electronic records initiative were asked why they were not mobilized for this challenge, the most common answer was, We are unclear on our needs as yet. This survey reflects the continued uncertainties of both the evolving records challenges and the increasingly complex state of electronic data discovery. Today s legal community wants greater control over their content. Regardless of repository, content needs to be managed in a consistent way across the firm. A framework that supports the discovery and preservation of all enterprise content, and manages its lifecycle in accordance with regulatory requirements, is accessible by the users in commonly used desktop applications, and ensures all of this in a cost-effective manner is the ultimate goal for law firms. 1 "Message Therapy", CIO Magazine ( January 15, w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

5 Extending Extending the Value the Value of Microsoft of Microsoft SharePoint in Law Firms with Legal Information Open Text Management Legal Information by Open Management Text A A Joint Whitepaper Office Business Applications: Delivering Business Value in Law Firms The Need for Effective Legal Desktop Solutions Law firms face increasing pressures to provide high levels of client service; to attract and retain high quality clients and staff; to avoid damage to reputation, malpractice, and other forms of risk; and to improve practice profitability through reduced costs, higher billing realization rates, greater productivity and other means. A number of factors magnify these pressures and increase the magnitude of the challenge that law firms face in meeting their strategic and business goals. The rapid growth of content means that lawyers spend more time searching for, sifting through, and organizing information. As a consequence, firms suffer losses of productivity. More importantly, perhaps, time spent finding content is time that could otherwise be used to fine tune advice and turn around high quality client deliverables more quickly. Also, the burden of organizing large volumes of information leads to increased risks to information confidentiality, integrity, and availability throughout the enterprise, as information is stored in inappropriate locations or not profiled accurately and completely in document management systems. The improper storage and profiling of information makes the task of locating and sharing relevant information difficult and time consuming. As a consequence, it undermines an important strategic goal for law firms to identify, reuse, share, and transfer knowledge to expedite faster turnaround times and meet client expectations. Moreover, it creates heightened risk of malpractice and damage to reputation because improperly stored and profiled information may not be subject to controls that, for example, enforce policy-driven retention rules and audit content access. Increased costs and liability are other consequences of improperly stored and profiled information in the event that such information becomes subject to a legal discovery process in response to litigation, investigation, or audit events. Heightened malpractice, damage to reputation, and other forms of risk also arise from an increasingly complex ethical and regulatory environment that governs the activities of law firms, their clients, and their shared content. Clients are concerned, in particular, with the ability of the law firm to maintain privacy and confidentiality during the delivery of services and to produce relevant matter content when needed or demanded. For their part, law firms need to meet higher standards to avoid conflict of interest during client intake and throughout the relationship with their clients and to ensure that they meet their ethical and professional obligations for a high standard of care. Office Business Applications for Legal Desktops OBAs result from the combination of the Microsoft Office System with processes and content from line-of-business applications. As the heart of Microsoft Office, SharePoint Server 2007, is a key component of the current generation of OBAs. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and other capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007 provide effective solutions for managing content growth and promoting knowledge sharing, while helping to mitigate risk and liability. The ECM architecture of SharePoint provides an integrated, extensible, and interoperable solution for document, records, forms, and web content management. Furthermore, the unified architecture of ECM within SharePoint supports and facilitates collaboration, as well as providing integrated enterprise search capabilities to enable efficient retrieval of information, user management and user rights, digital rights management, and workflow. Importantly, the interoperability, extensibility and customization features of SharePoint make it easy for firms to implement solutions that enable and support the matter lifecycle and preserve the metaphor of the physical matter file. Some of the capabilities that support the matter lifecycle include: The ability to organize and profile information so that it provides rich contextual information and becomes easy to locate, either by navigating to it or searching for it. The ability to capture information for reuse as best practice material. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 2

6 Effective search capabilities that extend to both internal and external systems to find best practice documents, precedents, and other relevant information or to perform research, for example, to search external legal or other databases. Automated workflows to expedite and ensure the completeness and accuracy of business processes within and around the matter lifecycle, such as conflict checking, document approvals, disposition, and so on. Integration with accounting, client records, and other systems so that docketing, time and billing, key performance indicators, and other information stored in these systems can be filtered, analyzed, and aggregated for display along with the matter files. The ability to collaborate on matter files within teams, with clients, and across organizational boundaries. The ability to support ethical and legal compliance requirements for managing information. The ability to declare documents as records and to enforce disposition requirements, such as legal holds, and disposition schedules for records. Integration of SharePoint with the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, and Exchange Server 2007 promotes user acceptance, promotes compliance, and increases productivity by providing users with familiar interfaces for finding, creating, storing, and classifying information. For example, the integration of Outlook 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 with SharePoint allows users to easily classify and declare as records from their Office Outlook 2007 client for long-term retention in Office SharePoint Server 2007 through simple drag and drop operations. The ability to synchronize SharePoint document libraries with Outlook 2007 makes it easy for lawyers to work on client matters when they are not connected to SharePoint. As law firms continue to take advantage of the tangible benefits generated by Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and attorneys and legal staff increase its use for collaborative, content-related activities demand for tighter coupling of those powerful capabilities with those of tailored Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, such as Legal Information Management by Open Text, is emerging. Enhanced Business Value with Open Text Legal Solutions Striving for a Best of Both Worlds Legal Information Management Solution The sheer volume of content that law firms produce is cause for concern for any CIO and IT department in the legal industry. Many progressive law firms have turned to Microsoft SharePoint as a way to provide general-purpose, highly intuitive collaborative workspaces for fee earners and legal staff to carry out dayto-day content-intensive work. As much as SharePoint has positively impacted collaborative efforts throughout law firms, lawyers and legal staff work in a very specific way and in support of very specific processes. The ideal software environment reflects both the need to facilitate the matter-centric way of working along with the demands of increasing productivity, efficiency, and ultimately the bottom line. Information from all business systems in the firm from to billing reports and from document management systems to knowledge bases needs to be searchable and accessible in a centralized, snapshot view so that lawyers spend less time locating desired content and more time billing. Another important factor is ensuring the familiarity and ease of use of matter sites and collaborative solutions. As with any technology in law firms from billing systems, to calendaring applications and new business intake solutions collaborative sites must be highly intuitive, flexible, and transparent in the sense that most lawyers do not want to spend time learning new technology. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

7 Moreover, firms have an ongoing responsibility to retain, protect, and destroy the information created over the lifecycle of a matter in accordance with regulatory and firm-wide policies. Files must be retained and destroyed using a policy that governs the entire firm. Ad-Hoc destruction of files without a policy in place puts firms at risk. A detailed policy description as well as a full audit trail is vital for a firm to prove that any files destroyed were part of a firm wide policy. Firms must ensure that their systems support the need to minimize liability while maintaining a strong ethical position. Lastly, even with the efficiency and productivity gains that Microsoft SharePoint has delivered for law firms, attorneys and legal staff still struggle with locating information in a timely matter especially when the desired content resides in multiple systems across various even global locations. In short, while Microsoft SharePoint has gained wide acceptance for its ease of use, straightforward presentation, and superior collaborative capabilities that support the matter-centric way of working, attorneys and firms still have a number of questions about extending their SharePoint environment to meet the specific needs of their law practice. Legal Information Management from Open Text helps address those questions. It is an advanced content management solution specifically tailored to support the business processes of law firms and the matter-centric way that lawyers work. With more than 15 years of experience and focus on building solutions that meet the specific content management requirements of law firms, Open Text has leveraged its knowledge of the way that lawyers work and how information flows throughout firms to build a solution that maps to these unique aspects. The result is Legal Information Management a tailored solution that offers attorneys ease of use, the ability to carry out their tasks in the environment of their choice, and the tools they need to quickly locate and leverage their matter-centric content. With Legal Information Management, firms get the best of both worlds. They can continue benefiting from the straightforward and familiar Microsoft Office system while enhancing their investment by coupling it with the matter-centric presentation, multi-repository search and retrieval, advanced business reporting, industry-leading records management, integration capabilities, and flexibility of the Open Text solution. Legal Information Management by Open Text: Answering the Call to Optimize Microsoft SharePoint Environments in Law Firms As attorneys grow more familiar with using Microsoft SharePoint to carry out their day-to-day tasks and more comfortable with using its document management and collaborative capabilities to store and deliver work product, they still have questions about how SharePoint can be extended to meet their specific business requirements. What follows is a series of commonly asked questions about how legal technology solutions can support the way lawyers want to work and statements about the issues and frustrations lawyers face and the ways that Open Text s Legal Information Management solution addresses them. Automatically Generated Matter Sites I m running behind and just need a snapshot of my matter files. I don t have time to waste looking around different sites or in different systems I just need that centralized view. It goes without saying that lawyers are extremely busy professionals. They don t have time to waste looking for the information they need. One of the benefits of Microsoft SharePoint is that firms can create collaborative sites to store and create work product in support of each matter. These matter sites allow attorneys to view information associated with each matter file throughout its lifecycle and easily locate information related to the matter. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

8 Law firms need control over the site creation process to maintain consistency and system integrity. Automating this process provides a further valuable enhancement. With the number of matters opened daily in many law firms, maintaining the matter site building process can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Another issue arises when a matter is closed and the content is either decommissioned or moved to another environment for long term storage for compliance purposes. If the matter must be searched or is reactivated, this is a time consuming and manual process. Ideally, the folder hierarchy and other structural elements should be retained within the archive, and when the matter is reopened or reinstated, the hierarchy should be intact. This will ensure the integrity of the matter file and maintain the original view of the matter site for attorneys that need to locate information. Legal Information Management by Open Text extends many of the powerful capabilities that SharePoint provides, including data feeds, InfoPath forms, and the Windows Workflow Foundation, to automate numerous processes used by firms on a daily basis. These include the automatic creation of matter sites, assignment of attorneys to matters, and more. Figure 1: Create New Matter Sites Automatic matter site creation > The client/matter taxonomy is the basis for the majority of a firm s business systems (such as accounting and records management systems), and is used by Legal Information Management to automatically generate matter sites in Microsoft SharePoint. Leveraging SharePoint site templates, Legal Information Management matter sites include folders specific to each area of law that can map to the firm s records management file plan and provide automatic categorization of content as business records. Auto-generated matter sites manage enterprise information associated with a matter in one place. Matter sites can be triggered by a New Business Intake process, thereby eliminating the need for administrative support to create new sites. Any SharePoint feature can be included in Legal Information Management matter sites, including site-specific calendars and discussion boards. The advantage of Legal Information Management is that it is capable of reading the client/matter hierarchy created in other systems and using it to automatically build a matter site at the inception of the new business. With even moderate-sized firms generating between 10,000 and 30,000 (or more) matters every year, this converts into enormous time and cost savings. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

9 Matter site archiving > As matters are closed or become inactive, Legal Information Management can backup and archive entire matter sites in a single step with no need for user intervention or IT support. The full site can be treated as a business record and be searched within the archive even though it is inactive. If the matter is reopened or the site needs to be restored for another purpose, the original structure is retained. This avoids having to recreate the matter site folder structure and eliminates the need for IT to assist lawyers and legal staff in rebuilding matter sites. Intelligent records classification > As attorneys add work product to a matter site, Legal Information Management automatically assigns a classification to each document in accordance the firm s file plan. By mapping the SharePoint file structure back to the firm s records management file plan, Legal Information Management makes the process of meeting compliance and internal policy requirements invisible to attorneys and legal staff. This eliminates the need for attorneys to be trained on the records management strategy and mitigates risk for the firm. Ensuring consistency of look and feel across interfaces > Open Text s Legal Information Management displays matter sites across a variety of interfaces to map to the way that individual lawyers work. Whether attorneys prefer to work in the intuitive SharePoint environment or in other desktop applications, such as Outlook or Windows Explorer, the look and feel folder structure, tasks, presentation, and other elements are preserved. By adapting a common matter taxonomy to the various environments in which attorneys work, Legal Information Management provides a simple, powerful, and consistent way to increase productivity and efficiency levels across the firm and to provide attorneys with a choice of interfaces that match the way they work. Figure 2: Common Matter Taxonomy w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

10 Metadata Management I like the way I can easily store information to my matter site, but why do I always have to fill in all this information about my documents. It wastes a lot of time when you add up the number of documents I save to different matter sites. It would be great if the system just knew what client and matter my documents are for. Lawyers often work on a number of matters each day and create work product in support of those matters. When working in Outlook or Word, saving documents to SharePoint matter sites is extremely easy. Legal Information Management extends that ease of use by automating metadata entry and security assignment associated with the document. This saves time, especially when considering the typically high number of matters that attorneys work on. Automated metadata assignment > Attorneys don t like spending time on administrative work and other non-billable tasks. Assigning client and matter IDs, and stipulating access and security permissions for documents are definitely time-consuming tasks. Legal Information Management can automatically assign client and matter numbers to documents based on the matter site or the folder they are saved into. Additionally, all security permissions are inherited based on the folder where the document is stored. Streamlined and automated metadata gathering > Legal Information Management by Open Text creates predefined forms based on the firm s business model. Client and matter metadata lists are automatically generated from the New Business Intake process, or through automated data feeds from the firm s accounting or billing systems. This greatly reduces the time and resources required by IT to build document forms that enable attorneys to assign work product to the appropriate client and matter. Metadata consistency > The metadata fields for all matter sites are identical based on the firm s business model. This means that documents can be associated with clients and matters across all matter sites using a single form. This eliminates the need to update forms for each matter site when new clients are added or new matters initiated. This ensures consistency and accuracy of file association and lessens the burden on IT resources as they no longer have to update forms across various matter sites. Enhanced Matter Subscription Capabilities My firm handles so many matters for so many clients. I m only concerned with the files that I m working on personally. How do I get a view of just what I need? Firms can represent thousands of clients and can have multiple matters open for a good number of them at any given time. With potentially thousands of matter sites active across the firm, attorneys need a centralized and personalized view of the matters that they are working on at any point in time. Microsoft SharePoint sites built around matters enable attorneys to view documents and carry out collaborative activities associated with any given matter. However, attorneys desire an automated mechanism that presents only the matters of personal interest to them. Auto-Subscribing lawyers to matters > Legal Information Management can associate an attorney with a matter based on a list generated by other business systems within the firm, such as billing or accounting systems. This means the attorney will not only be able to view the matter site for each of the matters they are currently working on, but also have their newly assigned matters automatically added to that work list. This eliminates the need for IT intervention during the New Business Intake process to assign the appropriate lawyer to the matter, and reduces the time spent by lawyers setting up their personal views in Microsoft SharePoint. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 7

11 Pre-population of relevant content > Based on favorites for each lawyer (matters, key clients, etc.), Open Text s Legal Information Management automatically exposes relevant content to SharePoint matter sites so that a personalized view of only desired and timely information is presented. Again, this reduces the time spent configuring matter site views and eliminates the need for IT to assist in customizing SharePoint matter sites for lawyers and legal staff. Figure 3: Matter Subscriptions Comprehensive tailored views for lawyers > With Legal Information Management, attorneys have a single, firm-wide view of matter-related content from both Microsoft and non-microsoft sources. Information is gathered from multiple sources and repositories, including records and documents, , billing information, and discussion boards. The contextualized view of information for attorneys enables the snapshot view that they want and greatly reduces the amount of time spent searching for documents and other content. By automatically adding relevant information to matter sites, Legal Information Management streamlines overall firm processes and simplifies the way that lawyers access and leverage business information. Cross-interface availability and consistency > Open Text s Legal Information Management is capable of not only automatically assigning attorneys to matters and generating contextualized matter-centric views but also ensuring that the same view structure is maintained across various interfaces. Legal Information Management can be exposed in the applications most commonly used by attorneys. This means that, regardless of whether an attorney is working in Outlook, Office, Windows Explorer, or SharePoint, they are presented with the same holistic view of information that is associated with a given matter. This simplifies the way information is accessed and allows attorneys the flexibility to work in whichever environment they prefer. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

12 Search and Retrieval Time is money. I cannot waste time looking for the information I need and certainly don t need any frustration added to my day! I just want to be able to find what I m after without having to know what matter site it belongs to or what system the information is stored in. One of the biggest sources of frustration for lawyers is finding the information they need. Whether it is the time required to locate it, the inability to find it, or having to comb through tedious folder structures, getting at the right information in short order is a challenge. Microsoft SharePoint sites built around a matter allow attorneys and staff to search for information within those sites and even fine tune the search to locate only documents that they have worked on recently, for example. However, if the search criteria are vague or involve information from numerous sources, systems, and matter sites, attorneys still experience a good deal of frustration. Features found in Legal Information Management extend information search and retrieval capabilities to provide an optimized experience for attorneys. Precise results by type of content > Leveraging the intuitive search form of Microsoft SharePoint, Open Text s Legal Information Management allows attorneys to select from multiple types of content (and repositories and business systems) to produce a holistic result set. The search will automatically recognize the context of the site where the attorney launches the search form and pre-fill metadata fields based on that context. Federated search capabilities > Getting all the information from multiple systems and matter sites is certainly beneficial to attorneys, but obtaining documents and information regardless of geographic location, system, or repository is what attorneys are really after. Legal Information Management federates the Microsoft SharePoint search with its own search capabilities across critical firm sources (or only those selected by an attorney) that produce comprehensive result sets. This eliminates the need for lawyers to conduct multiple searches across various sources to build a comprehensive list of desired information. The result set presents the lawyer with a listing that identifies the source, relevance, and type of content ( , form, document, image, etc.) of each document or content element. Advanced metadata search > Legal Information Management enables attorneys to not only search document content but also the underlying metadata. For example, lawyers can search for document authors, named parties, keywords, and other modifiers based on a centralized metadata term list that is consistent across all matter sites. This improves the flexibility of searches and reduces the time to information for attorneys as they do not need to know specific matter numbers or client IDs to get the information they are after. Simplified access to frequently used content > Similar to the Recent Documents list in Microsoft Word or Excel, Open Text s Legal Information Management provides attorneys with easy access to the Microsoft SharePoint Recent Edits list that contains all documents edited by the attorney within a specified number of days. The documents, reports, and other information in the list can reside in any matter site or site collection throughout the firm. This provides attorneys with a simple way to get at frequently used or recently viewed documents and content without having to conduct multiple searches. Saved search capabilities to streamline information access > In Legal Information Management, attorneys and staff can save frequently conducted searches and also use standard saved searches created by administrators to simplify the retrieval of frequently used content. For example, an attorney might save a search for a key client or matter number to avoid having to run the search every day or store a search to locate a particular report they check frequently for updates. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m

13 Enhanced Records Management I m a lawyer, not a records manger. How do I ensure that I am filing my work product in accordance with the firm s policies and also help avoid any personal legal risks? Records management can be a complicated discipline that involves a thorough understanding of legal obligations in support of compliance initiatives, knowledge of standard retention policies, and a sound approach to building an effective, comprehensive file plan for the firm s work product. Additionally, a solid records management program involves not only electronic information, but physical (paper-based) files as well. Attorneys simply do not have the time to spend ensuring that their work product is properly classified in accordance with firm policies and regulatory mandate. However, the risk associated with not doing so is severe, so today s lawyers are presented with a real challenge. The goal is to balance the need to minimize the time spent classifying documents with that of ensuring compliance. Legal Information Management helps law firms by providing features that automate a good deal of the records assignment process while ensuring the flexibility for attorneys to manually carry out records management tasks when desired or required. Records policies applied across applications > Through the use of Open Text s Enterprise Library, Legal Information Management enables firms to deploy a centrally defined and managed file plan and have it applied across Microsoft and other business systems. This means that regardless of whether a lawyer is working in Outlook, Word, SharePoint, or another business system, they can categorize their work product in accordance with the firm s file plan without ever having to leave that environment. Additionally, individual versions of documents can be classified separately to help maximize the accuracy and effectiveness of the firm s records management program. Physical records management support > Legal Information Management by Open Text allows firms to include physical records along with electronic files to establish a rigorous and holistic program. It provides capabilities to address the specific requirements of physical files, including circulation control, barcode recognition, and space/warehouse management. By centrally managing physical records as part of the overall records management program, firms realize a lower cost of ownership, streamlined process, and a strong compliance position. Automated classification of documents > Legal Information Management minimizes the need for attorneys and staff to manually classify their work product. It automatically designates documents as records in accordance with firm policies, based on both location as well as the metadata associated with each file. By automating the classification process, much of the guesswork and time associated with records management is eliminated for the attorney, secretary, or administrative assistant and responsibility is put into the hands of the firm s records management professionals. This saves attorneys a good deal of time while ensuring that the firm s records policies are enforced without requiring additional action on the part of attorneys or staff. Automated disposition of records > At some point all records are assigned for disposition. Assigning individual records is a time-consuming process, especially when thousands (or even millions in certain cases) of records may become eligible for disposition in a short timeframe. For example, disposing of a large number of s deemed non-essential after a default time period has elapsed can take a matter of weeks. Legal Information Management by Open Text supports automated disposition of records, thereby eliminating the need for tedious, manual review of individual records. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 10

14 Enhanced Archiving Capabilities Once my matter has been closed or becomes inactive, I don t want to see it. That said, I want it available in short order if I need it down the road. Can I get the best of both worlds? Content chaos is not new to law firms. The explosion of electronic content has generated significant challenges for IT in terms of cost control. In response, many firms have established archiving policies to control systems management costs and ensure the availability of resources for new projects (matter sites, etc.). The problem is that firms must balance the need to curb costs with the needs of attorneys to have timely access to content that has been archived. Open Text s Legal Information Management provides firms with a feature-rich solution that ensures the availability and integrity of archived information for attorneys while providing a cost effective and highly secure framework to support firm-wide archival strategies. Support for individual document or entire matter site archiving > When a matter is closed, Legal Information Management can archive enterprise content in a single, centralized location. This avoids having to break up a matter site (archiving documents in separate repositories based on content type, like and images) in order to archive it completely and ensures the integrity of the matter site s structure. Additionally, archived sites and documents are available to attorneys for quick browsing or searching and easy access, as opposed to having to manually file a request to have the archived content located and restored. Archiving of Microsoft SharePoint content > With Open Text s Legal Information Management, content in SharePoint can be interactively or automatically archived into a centralized system. Original files are replaced with stubs that link to the archived content. This maintains the structure of matter sites and ensures that content is always accessible to attorneys, regardless of whether it is active or archived. End user functionality is such that users do not have to be concerned where the document content physically resides. Standard retention schedules can be applied across all content to ensure that archived matter sites are not overlooked in the application of records management policies. Advanced security > In the event that a legal or compliance issue arises, the integrity of archived information is often of paramount concern. Legal Information Management offers rich security features that help ensure the tamperproof storage and encryption of all archived content. This avoids firms having to spend time and money on establishing security policies and investing in security software and storage and also strengthens the firm s overall compliance position. Intelligent Storage Management > Open Text s Legal Information Management features advanced functionality that helps firms control storage costs while ensuring the easy location and retrieval of content for attorneys. As content ages and becomes less likely to be accessed or used, it can automatically be moved to less costly storage media. At the same time, attorneys can still easily find and retrieve archived content without requiring administrative support. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 11

15 Rich Management Features I would love to be able to file in SharePoint the same easy and fast way I do in Outlook. Can I do that? What if I have a hundred s that need to be filed into a matter site at one time? The volume of s generated within law firms is astounding. Controlling the costs associated with is certainly a priority in most law firms today, but so is the need to maintain the accessibility and availability of for attorney requirements and regulatory compliance purposes. Balancing the need to make filing simple for attorneys and staff while ensuring that established policies are adhered with is a challenge. Legal Information Management features a rich set of capabilities to optimize the way that firms manage . Straightforward drag and drop filing of messages > With Open Text s Legal Information Management, can be easily dragged and dropped from Outlook into SharePoint within the client/matter hierarchy. All metadata associated with messages is retained. In addition, the matter metadata and security of the target folder automatically become associated with the thereby eliminating the need for completing forms for each saved to a matter site. This is particularly useful when entire folders need to be associated with a matter and stored to a matter site. Unified access to archived > High volumes of archived can easily be located and retrieved by Open Text s Legal Information Management within the SharePoint, Office, Outlook, or Windows Explorer environment. This avoids the time and cost of having IT assistance to locate and retrieve desired messages. It is particularly valuable in the event of a legal or compliance issue, as it reduces the discovery timeline and supports any audit process with respect to the integrity of messages. Ethical Walls to Defend Against Conflicts I need to ensure that my assistant can access all of my work but I have to be careful to ensure that only those that should see information can see it. I don t need any malpractice suits or other conflict of interest issues arising. Protecting the firm from conflicts of interest is a primary concern. The collaborative nature of SharePoint makes the application of appropriate security permissions an even more important issue. Legal Information Management provides extensive Ethical Wall capabilities to ensure that only the parties that are supposed to see information can actually see it. Flexible security permissions to wall off matters > Legal Information Management by Open Text enables firms to implement exclusionary ethical walls that will block matter sites and documents from access by any user who has been walled off. For example, a law firm has brought on a lateral hire who previously worked for the opposing side in a currently active matter. This new hire must be blocked from all information related to this case. Open Text Legal Information Management exclusionary ethical walls allow the firm to simply designate this single attorney as being walled off from the matter, rather than forcing the administrator to grant rights to everyone else in the firm except this attorney. The task of identifying this single attorney automatically blocks them from access and knowledge of the matter. Walled off users will not see the secured matter/document in any menus or search result lists and, therefore, are blocked from any conflict. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 12

16 Advanced Matter-Centric Reporting I need a list of all the documents for this matter and who has accessed or modified any of those documents. And I don t want to wait for it. More and more, attorneys are demanding information about their information to support efficiency goals or simply to support matter-related issues. From reports about matter activity to snapshot views of documents associated with a particular matter, Legal Information Management leverages Microsoft SharePoint Excel Services to deliver a rich set of preconfigured reports that address attorneys demands for quick access to information while reducing the burden on IT to generate requested reports. Comprehensive reporting across matter sites and content > Open Text s Legal Information Management leverages the advanced reporting capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint, enabling attorneys and staff to generate commonly requested reports on the fly. Document lists, matter activity, matter lists, access control reports, and a variety of other reports are at an attorney s fingertips, eliminating much of the need to request IT support in building reports and providing lawyers with rapid access to information about their clients, matters, and work product. Figure 4: Matter Centric Reporting Unique Document Reference/Identifier All I have is a document number. I don t know where a document lives I just want to be able to get my document fast. Often, when files are shared across matter sites or between departments, multiple copies of the same document are ed or copied to different locations. This causes significant problems as content rapidly becomes out of synch with edits made to the original file or subsequent versions. Ensuring the accuracy of information across matter sites and departments is next to impossible when document sharing is carried out in this manner and the result is redundant work, time-consuming document analysis and merging, and overall efficiency and productivity losses. Advanced document reference identifier capabilities > Legal Information Management features an advanced document referencing capability that associates each document with a unique identifier. Essentially, documents can live in a single place, but allow a reference to that document to be shared across matter sites and systems. Any changes to the document are reflected across all references, thereby eliminating the problems of collaborating on multiple instances of a document and ensuring that all parties have the latest version of a given file. Dynamic content presentation > One thing that lawyers consistently ask for is a single, contextualized view of matter-related content regardless of where that content resides. Open Text s Legal Information Management assembles content from a wide range of sources (including SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, Elite Enterprise, Conflicts Management, New Business Intake and other Open Text Legal Solutions, and w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 13

17 many others) and provides attorneys with the contextualized snapshot view they are after. This snapshot includes not only matter-specific content but also reference materials from sources outside of the matter site. Even archived information can be included in a centralized matter view, presenting attorneys with a list of available content residing in mass storage systems or archives. In short, attorneys are presented with everything they want to know about a matter in a single view, reducing the amount of time they spend searching for content and maximizing their billable hours. Powerful Auditing and Tracking Capabilities This matter is 10 years old, but I need to know its entire history. Is that even possible? On occasion, the need will arise for an attorney to know something about the history of a document. Anything from when a document was accessed or modified by a particular lawyer or staff member to when a change was made to a document can be important to an attorney. Legal Information Management by Open Text provides enhanced audit capabilities across individual documents and entire SharePoint matter sites to assist attorneys understanding of the history of their work product or any other historical information about a matter that they need to know. Enhanced audit capabilities > Legal Information Management has added customized actions to the Microsoft SharePoint audit trail that provide attorneys with the ability to search the entire history of a particular document regardless of where that document resides. Whether in a SharePoint matter site or an archive (all customized audit information is archived with the content), Legal Information Management can build a comprehensive audit trail of the document to assist lawyers with their information discovery tasks. A complete record of the document is maintained across repositories and applications to provide attorneys with a complete picture of exactly what has occurred from the document s initial creation through to the current timeframe. Summary/Conclusion Microsoft SharePoint and Legal Information Management by Open Text: Delivering an Optimal Experience for Attorneys As law firms continue to take advantage of the tangible benefits generated by Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and attorneys and legal staff increase its use for collaborative, content-related activities demand for tighter coupling of those powerful capabilities with those of tailored Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, such as Legal Information Management by Open Text, is emerging. Firms are leveraging Microsoft SharePoint to provide attorneys and staff with a highly intuitive environment that reflects the matter-centric way in which they work. By introducing the enhanced capabilities of Open Text s Legal Information Management in tandem with SharePoint, firms create a next-generation attorney workplace that will enable them to meet and exceed strategic and business goals while delivering an environment that matches the way lawyers work. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 14

18 Legal Information Management extends the value of Microsoft SharePoint across a number of key areas, including: Powerful Information Search and Retrieval to Save Time and Increase Productivity > Legal Information Management enables attorneys to search for the documents and information they are after with fast, relevant, and contextualized results. Attorneys can search not only the SharePoint sites where they store matter-related documents, but also across other matter sites, various business systems, global document repositories, other content sources, and even archived information all without having to leave their environment of choice (Outlook, Office, SharePoint, the Legal Information Management environment). The unified result list produced by Legal Information Management enables attorneys to quickly locate the exact information they are looking for without having to conduct multiple searches across the different systems where documents are created and stored. Streamlined Matter Site Creation and Holistic Matter Views to Increase Efficiency and Reduce Costs > With the thousands of matters that law firms handle each year, creating dedicated matter sites for each one can be an arduous process. Legal Information Management by Open Text helps firms by eliminating the need for administrative or IT assistance by automating the creation of sites based on SharePoint site templates. Matter site creation can even be triggered as part of the New Business Intake procedure to further streamline the process. Matter sites generated by Legal Information Management feature a comprehensive and contextualized view of information related to a particular matter, regardless of the source. Legal Information Management builds a snapshot view of the matter comprised of information from document and records management repositories, servers, SharePoint sites, and business solutions like conflicts management systems, billing and accounting applications, and many more. By automatically building matter sites upon the commencement of new business, Legal Information Management saves law firms time and money and frees up valuable IT resources to focus on other initiatives. At the same time, attorneys are provided with a holistic view of the information associated with a matter from documents and discussion boards to conflicts clearing and billing information. Comprehensive Records Retention to Mitigate Risk, Save Time, Eliminate Confusion, and Reduce the Need for Manual Classification by Attorneys > In response to the mounting importance of compliance for law firms, many firms are taking a vigorous approach to records management. Legal Information Management by Open Text offers firms a comprehensive solution that readily maps to the firm s unique records retention policies and file plan. From the attorney s perspective the biggest advantage of the records management capabilities of Legal Information Management is that the process is seamless. That is, Legal Information Management automatically classifies any information (in accordance with firm policies and taxonomy) that an attorney or staff member adds to the matter site. The process is completely transparent, removing any guesswork and placing the responsibility in the hands of the firm s records management professionals. This saves an enormous amount of time for attorneys while eliminating confusion and ensuring that the firm s stated records management policies are silently and consistently enforced. Enhanced Archiving Capabilities to Ensure Content Integrity, Reduce Storage Costs, and Improve the Organization of SharePoint Site Collections > Open Text s Legal Information Management provides firms with a solution that ensures the availability and integrity of archived information for attorneys while providing a cost effective and highly secure framework to support firm-wide archival strategies. Moreover, with automatic matter site archival capabilities, Legal Information Management can archive entire sites upon the closing of a matter to free up space on the SharePoint Server and ensure that the environment is free of the clutter of sites dedicated to closed matters. The entire structure of the matter site is retained so that restoration is simplified in the event that the matter is reopened. All archived information remains searchable so that attorneys can readily locate documents in support of their active matters. w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 15

19 Based on a rich, collaborative relationship with Microsoft, Open Text has built Legal Information Management with the single purpose of extending the business value of SharePoint for law firms. Microsoft, the leader in business productivity, and Open Text, The Content Experts, with more than 15 years experience in working to address the specific content-related challenges facing the legal industry, have together applied their knowledge of the way that information flows throughout law firms and, more importantly, the way that lawyers work, to build a tailored solution. As a result of the relationship between Microsoft and Open Text, progressive law firms can begin to develop a comprehensive Enterprise Content Management strategy aimed at taking advantage of the powerful capabilities and clear benefits of Microsoft SharePoint while, at the same time, extending its business value with the feature-rich, legal-specific capabilities of Open Text s Legal Information Management. Sales Americas Europe Asia/Pacific sales@opentext.com North America Sales International Sales United States 100 Tri-State Int l Pkwy Lincolnshire IL Phone: Fax: Toll Free: Germany Technopark 2 Werner-von-Siemens-Ring 20 D Grasbrunn Phone: Fax: United Kingdom Grosvenor House Horseshoe Crescent Beaconsfield Buckinghamshire HP9 1LJ Phone: Fax: Australia Level Berry Street North Sydney, NSW 2060 Phone: Fax: If you re an Open Text partner or customer, visit online.opentext.com for more information about this and other Open Text solutions. Open Text is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ (OTEX) and the TSX (OTC). w w w. o p e n t e x t. c o m 16