Copyright 2012, Jeffrey S. Krause, Esq. and Lawtopia, LLC

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2 Lawyers bill for time but sell words Communication is a lawyers stock in trade Printed documents, electronic documents, and s are all communications/documents that you might want to find or reuse later How to you organize documents so that they are easy to find later?

3 Documents come in various forms and all of these forms are saved and stored differently so you have to look in different places for them Different documents are organized differently so you have to understand how they are organized in each place Different documents are searched in different ways so, even after you find and learn the organization, you have to learn how to search each type differently

4 Document management is a way to save and organize documents in a logical fashion so that they can be searched for and retrieved later in the most efficient way possible Three types Homegrown Practice management based Dedicated document management Document management actually becomes less complex as you move up the scale

5 The exact system depends on the firm but this type of document management is almost always folder based Folders filled with paper Windows folders filled with electronic documents inbox folders filled with Big folders are subdivided into smaller folders For example, a client folder may contain matter folders and matter folders may contain document type folders

6 Multiple Locations. Documents are in a minimum of three places (paper, Windows, ) and might be in many places Text Searching. Text searching in Windows is slow and inefficient Consistency. The biggest problem is making sure that everyone understands the system and uses it correctly. Folders and documents have to be named consistently and saved to the right folder. There is no way to ensure the system gets used

7 Create a firm policy that mandates folder naming, document naming, etc. Client Folder Structure using Last, First or Company Name (ex. Adams, John) Matter Folder Structure using consistent names (ex Auto Accident) Document Type Folder Structure (Optional) for Correspondence, Pleadings, Memos, etc.

8 Document Naming Convention such as Letter to Adams, John Re Settlement Scan everything to PDF so that documents in paper folders are stored electronically OCR your PDF documents so that they are text searchable A tool like Google Desktop or Copernic Desktop can index your documents and make searching easier

9 Many practice management systems also include document management Both Time Matters from LexisNexis and LexisNexis Firm Manager include document management Practice management based systems help overcome many of the disadvantages of homegrown systems without drastically changing how you work

10 Document profiling is when you save a document with specific searchable criteria Common criteria are Client, Matter, Date, Author, Document Name, Document Type, etc. Practice management systems are databases which makes these criteria much easier to search The next two slides show examples of Time Matters Document Management

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13 Most practice management systems also provide improved text searching In Time Matters from LexisNexis, you can create document indexes Indexes can be searched for text and the search is very fast The next two slides show index setup options and a sample search

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16 Most practice management systems have a way to save The s are saved to the system and stored on an List similar to the way documents are stored This eliminates the problem of s being in multiple inboxes This can be a mixed blessing because it can be difficult to get the s out later if you ever want to change systems or upgrade to dedicated document management

17 Auto-Naming. Take advantage of the features your system provides to automatically create folders and name documents Create a firm policy and enforce it Use program features like Quick Tabs in Time Matters Work with a consultant (Time Matters CIC) to make sure it is setup right the first time

18 Dedicated document management programs are created for document management and nothing else Programs like Worldox provide extremely fast searching across all fields of a document profile or across multiple profiles Text searching is very fast s are searched along with everything else in one search

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20 Extremely easy to save a document searching s are saved in native.msg format so they are much more portable You can lock down the system so that users cannot save a document in any other way Document indexing is automatic Text searching is very fast and the results list is more useful

21 Learning Curve. While easy to use, document management systems change the way you do things. Be prepared for this and train your staff. Document Conversion. What about your old documents? A consultant can help. Practice management integration. Avoid double entry by using systems that integrate Return on Investment. There is a cost but it comes with a great return on investment.

22 Jeffrey S. Krause LinkedIn jeffreyskrause