Once seen as largely the province of “BigLaw”, Document Management Systems (often referred to as DMS’s) have become much more common in firms of all sizes. As distribution of documents via email becomes ubiquitous, and internet search engines like Google and Bing are employed by virtually everyone connecting to the Internet, the three core functions of any DMS:
- Storage
- Search
- Document Distribution
have attained wide-scale acceptance by firms of all sizes. Almost any online or premised-based storage system can perform these three core functions, from free online services like DropBox to high-end proprietary systems like iManage.
To stay competitive, modern DMS applications need to offer more than these three core functions.
Perhaps nowhere is this more important than in document security and standards compliance. Every reported incident of network hacks and ransomware invasions underscores the importance of heightened security standards to protect proprietary and confidential information. This level of protection is both expensive and complicated, and is frequently beyond the capabilities of a small office network. This illustrates the Achilles heel of any on-premise DMS: it is only as secure, and as standards-compliant, as the network on which it is hosted.
In the past year there has been a dramatic shift in attitude about the security of Cloud-based DMS’s.. Where once this approach was seen as an open invitation to confidentiality breaches (and may still be, with consumer-grade “free” services like DropBox), today a significant number of users are viewing the Cloud as a more secure place to store confidential information. A small private network can never hope to offer the security and compliance certifications available from a dedicated hosting provider. Even the most rudimentary of hosting services tend to implement more rigorous security measures, both hardware and software-based, than most small office networks deploy.
Even these services, however, cannot offer the same level of security and compliance available from an enterprise-level Cloud DMS service. Dedicated Cloud-based DMS providers, like NetDocuments, provide many orders of magnitude higher security measures than found at almost any hosting service. The NetDocuments business model is built on the basis of security, compliance, and reliability. NetDocuments has invested literally millions of dollars to achieve and maintain the highest levels of all three factors.
Beyond security and compliance, a well-designed DMS can offer a firm the ability to manage document workflow, and to automate and streamline many procedures and functions that must otherwise be performed manually.
Through automatic receipt of documents via email, for vendor invoices, for client documents to review, and for closing documents, among others, a modern DMS can bypass the labor-intensive tasks of scanning, filing, tagging, and collecting signatures that would otherwise need to occur to complete a matter. With a Client Portal in place as part of the DMS, or as an addition to the DMS (such as is offered by Legal Anywhere) firms can securely and confidently share documents with clients and other involved parties for review, editing, and/or signing, while maintaining full version control and “rollback” rights.
A well-designed Client Portal, with the proper security in place, can also carefully monitor and control the distribution of proprietary information, via restrictions on printing and “sharing” access built right into the Client Portal..
So, any DMS worth its salt should be able to offer basic storage, search, and distribution capabilities. The next-generation DMS should also offer:
- Enterprise-class security,
- Compliance with all published information processing standards,
- Document processing workflow capabilities,
- Secure collaboration tools for document sharing.
What’s in your wallet? Does your current DMS offer all of this? If not, or if you have not yet adopted a document management system in your firm, talk to us about how we can help you get there. Give us a call at 877-357-0555 or email us at [email protected]
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.