Does It Compute?

The Pace of Change

The major existing legal software programs are now about 15-20 years old. They were launched in the period 1988-1993: Worldox, Time Matters, PCLaw, Amicus, Tabs, etc. Then for a long time there were very few major new products. The existing products matured, developed more features, etc. But the overall choices available remained pretty stable.

However, in the past couple of years this has changed, as Seth Rowland noted in a recent blog, a series of Internet-based (“SaaS”) products have appeared in various areas: Document Mmanagement, Practice Management, Time & Billing, etc.  These programs are still mainly fairly immature, lacking features and functionality that users of the PC-based programs have become accustomed to. However, in the next few years these programs will mature: they are already doing so at a rapid pace.

One thing that is needed is for the US Internet infrastructure to catch up with European countries, which typically offer 4-5 times the speed that is generally available in the US.

Another is features.  Ross Kodner notes that if Salesforce can be a major force, smaller companies will eventually work out questions of logistics and security, primarily local backup and use when the “cloud” is unavailable.

With so many startups, it is inevitable that some of them will fold. The only thing I can see that would put a serious dent in the progress of SaaS programs is that if one of them were to fail spectacularly, with clients losing all their data. This happened a number of times during the first go-round of SaaS nearly 10 years ago (then known as ASP).

That’s all very well and good, you may say, but I have some decisions to make TODAY. What should I do?

As far as I can see, the firms asking this question fall into roughly three categories.

First, firms that are well entrenched with an existing program such as Time Matters or Amicus, but are very unhappy for one reason or another (bugs, price) and looking around for options. There are two major obstacles to these firms switching. First, it will be extremely difficult and expensive to convert their existing data. Conversion utilities are likely to improve in the next several years as the need becomes more prevalent. Second, they are likely to be unhappy with the lack of familiar features in the SaaS programs. They should look very carefully at how they currently work, what customization has been made, and check that the SaaS program has the features they need.  Most likely, the best choice for these firms is to stay put for a year or two. By that time conversion may be easier and the SaaS programs more full-featured.

Second, the small firm just starting out. Their main choice is whether or not to go with a SaaS program and “tough it out” waiting for new features to arrive. If a given program does not offer critical elements they need, does not offer local backup and does not offer some degree of customization, I would look elsewhere. The other option is to go with a “tried and true” program and risk that in a couple of years they will be in the same bind others are feeling today.

The third category is the “in-betweens.” To a large extent what they should do depends on firm culture, how risk-averse they are, whether they are sufficiently frustrated to “start over,” and so on.  A general rule of thumb in this situation is to sit down and make three lists: “What are the 5 (or 10) features I most like/need in my current program,” “What are the 5 (or 10) features I hate most about my current programs” and “What are the 5 features I wish my current software could do that it can’t.”  Use these lists as check lists when evaluating new software.

The Anxiety of Moving

Readers may wonder why I haven’t blogged in almost a month. We’ve been moving. Bought a new house in Old Lyme, CT (at the mount of the Connecticut river) and put our old house on the market. But now I’ve got my office installed and bookshelves built (about 200 linear feet), so I’m ready to get back to it.

The whole process makes me more sympathetic to firms that are buying a new computer system or new software. From a consultant’s point of view, it may be a slam dunk and obvious. From the firm’s point of view (or my point of view buying/selling a house or making major repairs) it is spending a lot of money on something that basically you have no clue about. This induces a lot of anxiety: am I doing the right thing? Could I get it cheaper without sacrificing quality? And so on.

Added to that is the fact that in today’s market, selling a house is compounded by the fact that real estate agents all want to propose fire-sale prices and are more anxious to move a house quickly than to get a good price for it.

But this is why you hire house inspectors (or consultants) – to find out the various things that you might suspect but do not have the expertise to actually analyze.

"How Do I Get My Documents?"

When a firm first adopts a document management system such as Worldox, it has to contend with the fact that many secretaries and power users have constructed their own workarounds to compensate for the innate inefficiency of not having a DNS.  Two of the most common are to put shortcuts to frequently used files on the user’s desktop and to set up their “own” directory structure under My Documents.  Both these are outside the normal structure of a DMS, so the user logically feels that the new system is less efficient than the old one. 

Fortunately, there are a variety of ways around this.  One “quick and dirty” solution that I frequently suggest is to have the user move those files into Worldox but to add there initials or a unique code such as your initials (personally I use “yyy”) to the description. Then, you can do a search for “yyy” and all your documents appear. This can be made even easier by creating a Quick Search Bookmark. When you have first done the search and all your “yyy” documents appear, click on “Bookmark” and select “Add This List.”  Give it a name (“My Frequent Documents”). Then, all your documents appear with one click.

Variations of this procedure can be used for documents stored under “My Documents.”  They can be found using the Worldox explorer pane, moved and catalogued.

An added benefit is that the “standard” documents can then be organized to benefit the entire firm to the extent that they are useful to more than one person.