Does It Compute?

NetDocs vs. Worldox

I’ve been a Worldox consultant for close to 25 years and Worldox has always been central to my consulting business. In the last five years or so, however, Net Documents has been making serious inroads in the Worldox market share. So perhaps its time to take a look and see why?

While much of the functionality of the two programs is similar, there are two core differences that are centrally responsible for ways in which the programs diverge.

• The first and most obvious is that while Worldox has always been an on-site, server based program, NetDocuments is cloud based: there is no NetDocuments client on the workstation, although in order to provide key document management features, NetDocs has had to adopt local components (“stub client” modules installed separately from an *.msi file – all the ndX modules are like this).

• The second is that Worldox is a centralizing and standardizing force. It encourages (enforces?) the application of firm-wide standards. This has the major advantage that all users can find information for any client using the same techniques. NetDocs, for all its talk about being “matter centric” has a much more “do your own thing” approach in practice although it is possible to configure it in a more restrictive way.

Interestingly, when you look closely, it becomes apparent that key characteristics of the respective programs are both their main strength and a central weakness.

NetDocs strength: it is cloud based. This means that you can work from anywhere, although there are a series of stub clients – ndOffice, etc. necessary to provide full integration and you have to configure browsers to integrate properly. So if you are visiting family and want to access NetDocs from one of their computers, the integration will not be automatic (although it will be possible to get work done). The cloud also has advantages in terms of scalability (which Worldox can’t match at present) and integration with other cloud programs. Being cloud based also offers advantages in terms of sharing documents with clients or others. Lastly, being in the cloud enables NetDocs to fix bugs and make adjustments rapidly and automatically for all clients (although not necessarily for the various ndX extensions).

NetDocs weakness: it is cloud based. This means a firm and users are hostage to their internet connection. For many firms, where a substantial majority of the work is still done in the office, NetDocs may be somewhat slow in terms of opening and closing larger documents and PDFs because they have to be downloaded and uploaded over the internet (the maximum speed of the best fiber optics cable connection is about half the maximum speed of an in-house network connection: if you don’t have fiber optics, you will be lucky to get 1/4 the response time of server-based programs). And of course any time a senior partner is uploading dozens of vacation photos or streaming video, the entire staff may take a performance hit. Every time you’ve said to yourself “the Internet is really slow today” – that would be NetDocs too. NetDocs recommends keeping your desktop clean and streamlined for speed reasons. Historically, there have also been issues with properly checking documents back in to the cloud after they have been opened to the desktop. Lastly, NetDocs will perform somewhat differently depending on which browser you are using, so training can be an issue.

Worldox strength: it is network/server based. By default, Worldox sets and enforces standards for the firm. No more confusion and lost documents. Worldox’s indexing program also allows qualitatively more sophisticated searches. In particular you can search your entire database (across profile groups and both legacy and active documents), or in the equivalent of folders/sub-folders, something NetDocs cannot do. So if you recall a particular provision or language you have used in the past, but not when or where you used it, Worldox will easily let you find it no matter where on your system it is.

Because network connections are faster than internet connections, your response time and general work conditions will always be better than the cloud. Worldox uses Windows macros in addition to more advanced integration (“APIs”), so that it is usually possible for tech support to integrate Worldox with any program on your desktop within 15 minutes or so. Since Worldox is not SQL-based, you don’t have to be an SQL guru to install and configure it. All the settings you will need are readily accessible either in the Admin program or *.ini files.

Worldox weakness: it is network/server based. This means that remote access is more complex than with a cloud-based program. To get remote access similar to NetDocs, an additional add-on product (Worldox Web) is currently required. Worldox requires additional modules or integration with third-party programs such as Workshare or LegalAnywhere to match the client portal and document sharing features of NetDocs. While Worldox has superior integration with desktop apps, its integration with cloud-based programs cannot equal NetDocs.

Worldox does have a full-featured cloud product whose operation is virtually indistinguishable from the server-based Worldox Professional. However it requires the installation of a minimal client in order to function, so it is not really relevant to this comparison.

Various Other Pros and Cons

Overall, Worldox and NetDocs functionality is roughly equivalent, although in terms of basic document management, NetDocs is still playing catchup with features Worldox has had for years (the recently released ndMail for example). This is probably not going to be a decisive area one way or another, unless there is a specific feature that a firm feels it absolutely has to have and is available only in one of the programs.

NetDocs “workspaces.” What Netdocuments refers to as “workspaces” are really just matters. Worldox automatically displays your recent matters/workspaces in a left pane. In addition, Worldox “Categories” can offer the equivalent of NetDocs “folders/subfolders.” This is mainly a question of taste rather than decisive functionality. To each his own.

NetDocs “folders/subfolders” can be an important issue. While the ability for individual users to create new folders/subfolders at will sounds very useful, it poses a conundrum for the firm as a whole. When an individual attorney creates a folder/subfolder for a given matter/workspace it is visible to the rest of the firm. So if this ability is implemented, then inevitably you will have conflicting/redundant “folders.” I had a client once that insisted on letting everyone create new doc types in Worldox: within a week they called back and said that they now had two doc types: “engagement letter” and “retainer.” Since these were manifestly the same thing, they wanted to eliminate one of them. The “do your own thing” approach reflected in “folders/sub-folders” will simply lead to chaos if implemented.

Advantage Netdocs: versions of documents can be different file types. This is primarily useful when you want to blackline two Word documents and save the resulting PDF as a version of one of the documents. Worldox does not let you do this.

An important feature Netdocs offers that Worldox does not is alternative word forms (search for “mice” will also find “mouse”). On the other hand, Worldox lets you search the entire document store, across different profile groups. NetDocs doesn’t let you do this.

Advantage Worldox. Salvage Bin. When you “delete” a file, Worldox lets you store it in an Salvage Bin (the equivalent of the Windows Recycle bin). This avoids both the “oh damn, I didn’t mean to do that” and the possibility of malicious deletions. The Salvage Bin can be purged at pre-selected intervals.

Linked/related documents. The NetDocs functionality is competitive with Worldox, but less robust than Projects. On the other hand, NetDocs subsumes some of the Project functionality in its tag and “folder” technology.

Third party links. Because it resides in the cloud, NetDocs offers basic built-in functionality that Worldox can match only through add-ins or links to third-party programs such as Workshare. This includes client portals and workflow processing functionality. NetDocs cautions that this functionality is meant for a limited number of documents, however. NetDocs’ “threaded discussions” functionality is largely matched by WDConnect’s collaborative editing functionality, and the WDConnect portal function is more robust than NetDocs.

Fashion

The “look and feel” of NetDocs is certainly more fashionable than Worldox. For many people whose use of a document management system is simple and limited, that will be enough. However, for more sophisticated searches (across profile groups for example), Worldox’s “old fashioned” presentation contains more information and may be preferred. Thus for example, when you save a document each program typically requires you to fill out the same five fields (name, client, matter, doctype, author). But Worldox displays this in a popup in the middle of the screen while NetDocs tucks them discreetly in at the bottom of the screen.

Cost

Cloud vendors generally like to claim that their products are more economical but this is virtually never the case, although it is difficult to get an apples to apples comparison.

Worldox’ upfront cost is $460/user plus $100 yearly maintenance. So for, say, 30 users, the first year cost is 30x$560 or $16,800. After that, your yearly cost is $3,000. WDConnect (which offers a metadata scrubber and other functionality in addition to equivalents to some of the NetDocs sharing and collaboration features) offers a set of modules based on Workshare at additional cost. However, you do not need to match Worldox licenses, so your price for this will vary. This will be an additional $204/user/year. If you installed this for, say, half your 30 users, it would add $3,060 per year. This cost is stable since Worldox has a policy of never charging for updates, new versions, etc. So for this 30 user firm, the three-year cost is $22,800, the five-year cost is $28,800. Up to $25,860 and $31,860 respectively with WDConnect.

NetDocs is about $40/user/month or $480/user/year (although NetDocs may negotiate some on the price). So for our 30-user firm, the cost is $14,400 the first year, and the same yearly amount thereafter, or $43,200 for three years and $72,000 for five years.

Of course, with Worldox you are also paying for in-house IT and hardware. However, since it is unlikely that you would be getting rid of IT and hardware entirely, this saves a firm only a fraction of their overall IT budget and probably no salary. The consulting fees involved in setting up and maintaining Worldox and NetDocs are roughly equivalent. It is unclear whether your IT savings would amount to more than $8,000 per year.

Conclusion

The best product for you depends on your needs, both real and felt, and a realistic assessment of how the firm as a whole functions. If “the cloud” is an overriding priority, or if you have a larger firm with multiple offices spread out across several states, then NetDocs may be the way to go. Similarly, if a large percentage of the firm, including staff, frequently works remotely, then NetDocs might be a good choice. However, if the bulk of your work is in a central office, and remote access is useful only to a small minority, then the additional functionality and speed/efficiency of Worldox combined with its remote access or cloud options make it a clear choice.

 

Document Management - the Complete Package

OK, so you’ve put in or are using Worldox. What else do you need to manage, control and secure your document store? Typically the three key areas a firm needs to address are Scanning, Email management and security, and Client Portals.  Here are some options for those areas, as well as a few others.

Scanning. In the past, many firms have not performed Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on their documents because it is time-consuming and/or their scanners were not configured for it. OCR is the most time-consuming aspect of scanning (count on 2-3 seconds per page). However, this is the process that makes your documents text-searchable - otherwise they are just graphical photocopies. Scanning documents is an integral part of making your entire document store easily available and text searchable.  There are two leading products in this area that work with Worldox: Symphony Suite and Content Crawler.

Symphony Suite, from Trumpet Inc., allows users to make Worldox “reservations” from their desktops, then stack all the documents to be scanned and feed them through the scanner in a single batch. This also means that the person who knows how to file the documents does not have to be the same person that does the scanning. Overall, this is the most versatile solution available. Symphony runs on the Worldox Indexer and works in the background, so you save a significant amount of time. The Symphony reservation system also lets you send large volumes documents to be scanned to a service bureau and then simply drop them into Worldox.

Content Crawler, from docsCorp. This also works in the background. It tends to be aimed at slightly larger firms and is more processor intensive than Symphony. It does not, however, provide for batch scanning.

Third Party Packages. Third Party Packages are frequently bundled in a way to encourage you to buy pieces you may not really need. They also overlap, so that Package 1 has features A, B, and C, whereas Package 2 has features A, C, and D.  So when you want feature A from Package 1 and feature C from Package 2, there is a problem.  Prioritizing the best choice for your firm may take some serious thought and calculations. The best way to start this process is to make two lists:  (1) what features do you need most; and (2) the absence of what features is causing you the most pain. Then start from there to prioritize. Leaving that aside, here are some of the things you may want and the best available options.

Document Comparison. While many firms “make do” with the built-in document comparison that comes with Word (even though for years Microsoft recommended not using it in a legal setting), there are some much better packages available.  Workshare (formerly DeltaView) is undoubtedly the market leader.  You can get a 14 day free trial on the web. Another good option is compareDocs from pdfDocs, which also comes as part of the Productivity Suite add-on to Worldox. Workshare handles WordPerfect comparisons whereas compareDocs does not.

Workflow. If you need to track certain workflows, the Worldox Productivity Suite is your best bet. You might want to track incoming scanned mail, document review, various accounting items (expense approvals), and so on.  The Worldox Productivity Suite includes pdfDocs (an alternative to Acrobat) and compareDocs, as well as other functions.

Email Metadata Removal. Managing and securing emails is (or should be) toward the very top of any firm’s priorities.  There are several excellent programs that will remove metadata from your emails (information such as who worked on a document, for how long, whether it was copied from another document, possibly tracked changes, etc.). Typically these programs also offer to convert a Word document to a PDF (contrary to popular opinion, however, simply converting a Word document to a PDF does NOT remove the Word metadata). An excellent standalone offering is Metadata Assistant from Payne Consulting.  The Workshare package also offers metadata removal. Finally, iRedline from BigHand takes more setup, but also offers levels of metadata removal depending on whether the document is being sent to a client or to opposing counsel, for example.

Secure Email Transmission. Sharefile offers a variety of secure encrypted email transmissions, including the ability to “brand” your email with your company logo. Emails and large attachments can be sent so that the recipient downloads the encrypted attachments from a secure site. If you typically send large numbers of very large files where you need to maintain security, this is an excellent choice. Workshare also offers email security, but it is more convoluted than Sharefile.

Portals. Sharing documents with clients has become a major topic. The main consumer sharing products, such as Google Docs or Dropbox, are notoriously insecure, and should certainly not be used by law firms.  While it is possible to configure Worldox to act as a limited portal, using the Web Mobile add-in, this capability is limited. There are two main legal-oriented portals, Sharefile and LegalAnywhere. Legal Anywhere is a high-end, complete solution. Sharefile (as the name implies) is more oriented toward sharing files with clients and securely transmitting confidential information. Workshare also includes a collaboration piece, but it is more aimed at in-house collaboration than a portal for sharing information with clients.

Electronic Signatures. If you have a high-volume transactional practice, electronic signatures will become increasingly necessary.  Citrix/Sharefile have just added Right Signature to their list of products. Definitely worth checking out.  Other leading vendors include esign from Adobe and DocuSign.

General Encryption.  It has almost become a commonplace that there are two kinds of law firms: those who know they’ve been hacked and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked. Worldox has announced an “at rest” encryption package, due out some time next year. This will encrypt the files on your server, while still making them available to the end user.

The Document Management Constellation

Most law firms need three categories of software: Time & Billing, Practice Management and Document Management. The document management category has come to include a variety of add-ons and related programs in addition to core document management features: managing your documents and emails.  What should the constellation of these features look like?  As always you want to start not from specific software, but from the needs of the firm.  What does a firm need to do?

•    The core, of course, is managing all your documents and emails, including scanned documents, documents received in production, and so on. The key aspect of document management is that it should enforce compliance: all users should be obligated to use the system.

•    Scanned documents. The firm should optimize the process of getting scanned documents into the document management systems, and make sure that all documents are OCR’d (run through Optical Character Recognition so that they are text-searchable).

•    Document comparison. Almost all firms need a document comparison product. Word’s Compare feature doesn’t cut it (and in fact Microsoft has traditionally recommended that law firms not use it). Also, you will need to run comparisons between PDF documents or PDF and Word documents.

•    Email management and removal of Metadata. Given the recent publicity around data breaches and hacking, this should be a no-brainer: firms absolutely need to remove metadata from any document sent out via email and possibly only send out PDFs to the extent documents are not meant to be marked up by clients or co-counsel.

•    Portals. Firms increasingly want a way to share and collaborate on files other than just via email. Many firms use the massively insecure DropBox, but this is high on the list of Worst Practices.

•    Other add-ons. Some firms will benefit from a workflow add-on, especially if documents are frequently circulated for review or approval. In addition, firms increasingly want to be able to share documents via some sort of portal, rather than simply emailing documents to clients.

As a long-time Worldox consultant and author of the ABA’s Worldox in One Hour for Lawyers, I recommend Worldox for your basic document management program. NetDocuments, a cloud-based DMS, has become very popular, but cannot match Worldox’s functionality (especially with the major improvements in the forthcoming Worldox GX4). In addition, since it does not enforce compliance, you cannot guarantee that you can obtain reliable results for queries such as “let me see all the documents for matter X.” It’s after you select a DMS that things get more complicated.

Scanning

How do you scan documents?  To a network folder?  To individual users’ emails?  Do you OCR all your scanned documents so that they are searchable?

Many firms find that it is cost effective to add a certain number of smaller desktop scanners such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap series to the larger Multi-Function Copier/Printer/Scanner machines. The ScanSnap series (and certain of the Fujitsu fi models) integrate directly with Worldox at no additional cost. Push the button, fill out the Worldox profile and you are done. Most larger MFP machines have add-ons at additional cost (think: $1,500-2,000 per scanner) that make scanning more efficient, including the very slick Canon ImageRunner models can integrate a Worldox screen directly on the copier.

Perhaps the most efficient way to deal with scanning/integration with Worldox/OCR is the Symphony Suite from Trumpet, Inc. This lets you create “reservations” in Worldox from your desktop and then batch scan a number of documents at one time. So you fill out the Worldox profiles at your desk, pile up the documents, and send them through the scanner together. Massively efficient. The Symphony program also takes care of OCRing your documents, which is one of the most time-consuming parts of scanning.

Document Comparison and Other Add-ons

Firms would be well-advised to purchase a commercial document comparison (redlining) package, as virtually all of them do a much better job than Word’s built-in feature.  The problem is that many of these products come in packages. Like options on a car, you may have to get things you don’t need in order to get the one you do want.

Two major players here are Workshare (traditionally the leader in Document Comparison) and DocsCorp’s pdfDocs. Esquire innovations also makes iRedline.  The Workshare suite is $175 for three modules: Document Comparison, a metadata remover and a Portal. DocsCorp’s suite is integrated into the Worldox Productivity suite which is $99 for firms under 25 users. It includes a PDF editor, potentially replacing Acrobat at significant savings and an excellent Document Comparison product (compareDocs). It does not include a Portal or a Metadata scrubber, which would have to be purchased at extra cost.

Metadata Scrubber

Probably the leading standalone product here is Payne Consultant’s Metadata Assistant ($98 with discounts for over 20 users). In addition to Workshare, Esquire Innovations makes the excellent iScrub, which offers different levels of scrubbing depending on the recipient (e.g., client, co-counsle, opposing counsel), clearly a major advantage. iScrub is aimed mainly at larger firms with an IT staff.

Portal

Workshare offers a very good Portal with its package. Cloud-based NetDocuments incorporates a semi-portal which lets a user share a small number of files (up to about 20) with other recipients. If you need a more robust portal, LegalAnywhere is probably the way to go. Worldox also links with Citrix Sharefile which can be used as a portal.

Workflow

Worldox’s Productivity Suite includes several Workflow pieces, including the ability to circulate documents within the firm for review/approval, the ability to set tasks in Outlook tied to specific files (review the Jones file today), and the ability to notify users if specific documents or matters are accessed. It also includes the DocsCorp suite. A bargain at $99/user.

As usual with this sort of thing, you need to decide what you need most.  One way to look at this is to ask where the firm is currently feeling the greatest pain. Pick the solution that will deal with the largest part of your pain and you can’t go wrong.

Are Matter-Centric Document Management Systems Dead?

iManage (now HP Autonomy) coined the term “Matter-centric” in 2002 and for years it was the defining buzzword for document management systems. This has been changing lately, however, and the latest iManage/Worksite brochure does not even mention the term, preferring to talk about “brows[ing] matter content and knowledge stores” with a “workspace view of each matter” and  “integrated access point to all matter content.” OpenText (ex-PCDocs) for its part talks only about “enterprise content management.” Matter-centric has been replaced by “Workspaces” as the fashionable term.

With the dramatic rise in computing power, and with Google as the central paradigm for searches, many programs are stressing “search analytics” as opposed to traditional metadata/keyword searches. Stand-along search programs such as ISYS, Copernic, dtSearch or X1 have always let you search the contents of your hard drive, and they have been expanding to other areas as well. New programs such as Metajure provide an over-arching indexing system that can search just about anything, including Outlook and Exchange repositories and cloud storage repositories such as Dropbox.

MetaJure goes the furthest in claiming to simply replace traditional document management with a search algorithm. Thus MetaJure says that it:

automatically crawls, indexes, and tags all of the documents, folders, and email within a law firm or corporate legal department, whether on personal computers, network drives, or other storage sites such as Microsoft SharePoint, Worldox, and NetDocuments.  Documents and email stored on vulnerable locations such as individual PCs are copied and centrally stored for secure retrieval.  All of this knowledge is then made accessible to your users through a simple, Google-like search that honors any and all underlying permission structures.

The issue of Google-type searches vs. structured systems (sometimes referred to as “silo” systems) is parallel to the debate in litigation and e-discovery circles between predictive coding and keywords. There have been several major cases recently in which courts have allowed predictive coding as opposed to the traditional keyword approach, where parties define a series of keywords and then produce documents that contain them. This has given rise to many comments to the effect that “keywords are dead.”

How much truth is there to this?  While a universal search algorithm has undeniable advantages, we should pause a moment to consider exactly what is involved here.  The key fact is that the search results depend on the power and efficiency of the search algorithm, as well as the prejudices that are built into it.

It has become notorious, for example, that Google’s search algorithm is reductive: it gives results based on what you have already searched for or data about you that it thinks is relevant. It is more difficult to expand a search into new or related areas. Thus one African-American Harvard University PhD was shocked to discover ads on her Google searches asking if she had ever been arrested. She had a “black” first name, so Google linked her searches to ads relating to arrest records. Similarly, in predictive coding systems, the value of the results depends on the quality of the manually selected and configured “seed records” used to initiate machine learning (and the accuracy of the various manual training iterations) to search the rest of the data. As a recent article in Practical Law magazine noted, setting up predictive coding requires substantial attention from experienced attorneys during the machine learning process: “A flawed seed set or training process will cascade those flaws throughout a production.” (Practical Law Journal - Litigation, June-July 2014). As Nicholas Carr notes in his excellent The Glass Cage — Automation and Us,  “Whenever a designer or artisan (or anyone else for that matter) becomes dependent on a program, she also assumes the preconceptions of the program’s maker.”

The most aggressive critique of traditional DMS programs comes from MetaJure, so let’s consider their arguments. Aside from questions of what is currently fashionable, their two core objections to traditional DMS programs are:

(1)    They are too hard and time-consuming to use, and the effort to save documents first and then import them to a DMS is unnecessary due to a system-wide search algorithm that provide advanced full-text searches of all your document. Setting up a structured taxonomy (typically client - matter - doc type) to facilitate finding documents is unnecessary and a waste of time.

(2)    In many document management program a large percentage of a firm’s documents and emails are not stored within the system, and searches are therefore qualitatively incomplete.

Is Taxonomy Worth It?

The claim that all document management systems have a two-step process (save, then import) is simply false. With Worldox, any time you do a file open or file save, Worldox pops up, effectively replacing Windows Explorer. In addition, filling out profile information will normally be a lot faster and much less error-prone than scrolling through a directory structure to save a document, especially with time-saving semi-automatic “favorite matters” options. You only ever save a document once. Net Documents recently brought out “ndOffice” which matches Worldox functionality for Word, although it still has a store-and-forward paradigm for other programs and does not require that documents be profiled.

More important is the reliance on full-text search algorithms. In some areas programs such as NetDocuments do have something of an advantage over Worldox due to advanced “Search Analytics” algorithms. MetaJure also has the ability to index all a firms emails, wherever they reside (including Outlook Archives), as well as cloud-based storage such as Dropbox, which Worldox cannot match.

On the other hand, one of the questions I almost always get when demonstrating Worldox is “searches are all well and good but I just want to see all the documents for a given matter.” This is extremely easy for Worldox since it is a locked-down system and all documents must be profiled to a client/matter. You simply search for that particular client/matter and all documents appear or you can display them in a defined Workspace or Favorite Matters list. However, for programs such as NetDocuments that allow or encourage users to import documents directly to a “Workspace” or in some other non-profiled fashion, not to mention MetaJure-type pure search programs, the request to “see all the documents for a given matter” is impossible to fulfill reliably.

Similarly searches like “all the documents I’ve worked on in the last week except emails” may be difficult to perform accurately. Another problem with full-text search is the amount of extraneous information that is inevitably generated, despite MetaJure’s claim that searches are most often “spot on.” If you search for all documents containing the word “agreement” for example, even if associated with a client name, in a firm of any significant size you will get thousands of hits. Similarly with various forms of motions, leases or pleadings, depending on a firm’s practice areas. You will often get either too much or be missing key documents because they don’t conform to your search terms. Users of Google or legal research products know that it often takes several searches to make sure you have all the results you need.

The lessons of Google and predictive coding are relevant to search algorithms for law firms. These depend on associating massive additional amounts of data to the search. Thus the process machine training for effective predictive coding can be extensive. Search algorithms will certainly improve (perhaps exponentially) but for the time being the fact is that a taxonomic structure will produce better, more complete and more reliable search results than a purely search-based program or “store and forward” programs where users are not obliged to store documents in the DMS. The lack of enforced compliance is probably the most critical drawback of these systems.

Law Firm Management

The second main complaint is that a lot of data resides outside the document management program. It is one of Worldox’s main strengths that it enforces compliance with the DMS. MetaJure claims that half of a firm’s documents may lie outside a DMS (but they are counting emails in this figure). Netdocuments is proud of the fact that it has a much higher percentage of users in a firm that actually use the program. But in Worldox sites configured according to “best practices,” close to 100% of the users use the program, since they don’t have any other choice: users are simply not allowed to store any documents outside the Worldox system. In effect, these advocates are claiming that the lack of required profiling endemic to store-and-forward systems is a major advantage, whereas in fact it is their most critical defect.

MetaJure is designed to be document management for people who hate document management. This highlights the serious problem of attorney resistance to using document management. In a properly configured system, this is not primarily a technical problem, or an issue of it being “too much work” to use a DMS. It is primarily a political issue stemming from the fact that law firm management is frequently very loose to non-existent. In a classic dysfunctional firm, each partner is like a medieval duke with his own little castle in his own little corner office, and never mind what is best for the firm as a whole. As law firms have had to adopt better business strategies to survive in an increasingly competitive market this is changing but is still a major factor in many firms.

Conclusion

Programs such as Metajure with advanced search algorithms that can also search data stores other than the DMS provide undeniable advantages. Firms with a massive backlog of current and archived emails might consider putting in Metajure on top of a DMS system such as Worldox. But for the average lawyer who just wants to “see all the documents for my matter” nothing beats taxonomy.

Some Questions for Microsoft's "Matter Centric"

Microsoft has announced a “document management” system called Matter Centric. This will supposedly allow users to collaborate through the cloud and to drag and drop documents to the appropriate matter.

Here are some questions you might want to ask before succumbing to the Microsoft hype.

– If you are “dragging and dropping” does that mean you are saving the document first and then dragging it somewhere else?  If so this will be less efficient and more error-prone than the supposedly “kludgy” document management form interfaces.

– Is the system optional or obligatory? Does a firm have to store all its documents there or can attorneys pick and choose?  If so then the firm has no control over its documents and there is no system integrity. A firm cannot guarantee that all documents are stored in the system.

– Microsoft proclaims “automatic version control.” Is this through some version of track changes or it is real version control? Track changes poses well-known security risks when “collaborating” with outside counsel, clients, etc.

– Microsoft announces integration with Word and Outlook. What about other programs, including Excel, Powerpoint, Acrobat (and its clones)? What about integration with practice management programs (Practice Master, Amicus, Time Matters and various cloud-based programs such as Houdini, RocketMatter or Clio)?

– What about integration with add-on programs such as document comparison/redlining programs (compareDocs, DeltaView, iRedline, etc.), or metadata removal programs such as Payne Consulting, Litera, etc.? There are many of these programs and a good document management system should integrate with all of them.

Advanced Worldox Classes from Heckman Consulting

As clients have upgraded to Worldox GX3, and/or added or changed users, a number of clients have asked me recently for Advanced and/or Administration training in Worldox GX3.

Consequently, I have put together two classes, each of which will be approximately an hour and a half.  Both classes can be customized to meet specific requests, new features, etc.

Advanced Worldox
    Advanced Searching
        Boolean Options
        Searching by Date Range
        Finding by Doc ID
        Using Tags
    Customizing Displays
        Customizing the Worldox File Display
        Creating bookmarks
        Associating screen displays with bookmarks
        Adjusting colors & display
    Creating and using Projects and Workspaces
    Quick Profiles
    Categories
    Same Profile As / Saving Returned Attachments   

Worldox Basic Admin
    Indexer
        Options: Email, Excel
        Trouble Shooting
        Scheduling
    Best use preference settings
    Quick Profiles / defaults
    Adding New Users
    Audit Trails
    Document Retention
    Security Classification Groups
    Ethical Walls

Classes are specific to one firm, so that we can train using the firm’s actual data. They include a 20-minute review of the firm’s system prior to training. Additional customization performed after or outside of training will be an additional charge, although some changes can be made during the actual course of training. Classes will be conducted via webinar software, preferably in a conference room with the screen projected on a wall. Alternatively users can remain at their desks, although this is less desirable.

The cost is $300 per class, or $550 for both classes, payable in advance.

Levels of Document Assembly

Everybody uses some form of document assembly, even if it is only the primitive, inefficient and error-prone “cut and paste” from an old document to a new document. But once you get beyond this, there are a number of levels of document assembly options.

The first is to use Word’s auto-text or similar features to automate whole paragraphs of text. This can range from closing signature blurbs (“Please feel free to contact us at .... if you have any further questions regarding this matter”) to more extensive paragraphs. I had one client who had about 20 or more auto-text entries to be used as canned objections to interrogatories, for example.  A commercial program, ActiveWords (www.activewords.com), extends this functionality to an industrial-strength level. For an interesting take on creating “boilerplate” documents, see the article by Vivian Manning on “Document De-Construction.”  She proposes creating a master document with all possible options and then “de-constructing” it by deleting what you don’t need. This might work in some cases but is still labor-intensive with respect to more advanced document assembly.

A second level is to create a system of Word templates that correspond to commonly used letters:  retainer agreements, various acknowledgments, etc.  Some firms may have 50 or more of these templates. Obviously the frequency of use has to be sufficient to justify the amount of work it takes to create such templates.

A third level is integration with Practice Management programs such as Amicus, Time Matters or Practice Master. This allows you to create Word templates that pulls information out of the Practice Management program and inserts it into Word. This can range from addresses, to docket numbers or client ids. I had a Trusts & Estates client who used this kind of system to assemble 50 pages of basic trust/will documents pulling the information from Amicus. This included basic Wills, Trust Agreements, Living Wills, Appointment of Health Care Agent, Power of Attorney and Designation of both Guardian and Conservator for both Client and Spouse. Sure, it cost him a fair amount of money to set up, but it reduced his drafting time to about 3 minutes. If all you want is a few basic types of form letters, it may not be worth your while to graduate to the next level.

The highest level of document assembly is dedicated programs that allow you to use intelligence or responses to an “interview” to assemble a document by pulling together relevant sections, paragraphs or even documents. Pathagoras (www.pathagoras.com) is one of the simpler programs of this type. HotDocs (www.hotdocs.com) and Exari (www.exari.com) are among the most sophisticated. You will probably want to use a consultant to do any extensive development of the latter two programs.

Macs and Worldox

Potential clients occasionally want to know if Worldox supports Macs. The short answer is: no.  The longer answer is that there are a variety of ways in which this can be done, some of which can be a bit pricy.

The first option is to use Parallels or Boot Camp for the Mac, which lets you run Windows on top of the Mac.  You would then use that Windows to access the server and Worldox. People who have tried this report that you can sometimes have timeout issues. And of course there is the issue of why would you want a Mac if one of your main functions is to use it to run Windows.

A second option is to use Worldox Web/Mobile, and use the Mac to access Worldox through the Internet. This will work, but involves an download/edit/upload scenario. So this would not be appropriate heavy use.  The Web/Mobile client also allows for access via an iPad. Again, this can be very useful but is not designed for heavy duty use. One of my clients who is doing this tells me that it can be fairly slow and it is frequently preferable to download files to a hard drive the iPad has access to and work from there.

A third option is to set up a Citrix-based terminal server. Microsoft makes an RDP client for the Mac that allows it to access your Citrix box. From there, you would access Worldox normally. This will work the best of all the solutions outlined above, but of course involves the additional expense of setting up a Citrix server.

The more general question for legal specific products is “will there be a Mac version for...” I think the answer to this is generally “no.” There are two reasons for this: First, smaller independent firms (like Amicus, Tabs or Worldox) do not have the resources to develop a Mac version, even if they wanted to. The behemoths (Lexis, Westlaw) would not find a profit in it and thus have little interest. The second reason is the growth of Cloud products. Mac support in the future will, I think, go through the cloud products, not through workstation-based software.

Is There a Change in the Document Management Paradigm?

The functionality offered by a number of new web-based “Document Management” programs on the market raises the question of whether the basic document management paradigm is shifting.

Traditional document management for law firms has several key characteristics:
  ● It is based on a client/matter approach and is locked down: everyone must use it all the time.
  ● It integrates with ALL the programs you use that generate documents (but may not integrate with databases)
  ● All your documents are full-text indexed and you have advanced search capabilities.
  ● It integrates with your email program and scanners.

The newer programs push two characteristics.  First, they are all in the cloud, so you save on expenses connected with your server (although it is dubious that you save money over-all). This means that you can access your documents from anywhere, without having to be in or connected to your office. Second, they are “easy to use” with drag and drop from Windows Explorer.

Typically, however, these programs do not integrate with everything and do not enforce usage. So they fail on that key functionality of document management systems. The “ease of use” via Windows Explorer amounts to “ease of making mistakes” and recreates one of the problems that lead firms to document management in the first place – increased error and loss of documents.

In short aside from the hype, these programs tend to have two things going for them. First, they are “in the cloud,” so that users can access any file that has been deposited there (and remember, this does not happen automatically). Second, they tend to integrate with file sharing programs like DropBox, Smartsync, Sugarsync, SpiderOak, etc. While this by no means replaces traditional document management functionality, it does represent a significant challenge to those programs.

Document management programs such as Worldox are starting to offer more fully-featured web access programs. Worldox now offers an iPad app for example (and other vendors either have one or have one in development) which is free (although you have to pay for the underlying infrastructure separately). Worldox also recently issued a “hook” which lets you access Worldox when uploading or downloading files from Dropbox.

Technolawyer Buyer's Guide to Document Management Systems

Technolawyer has just republished a slightly updated version of my Document Management white paper under the title “TechnoLawyer Buyer's Guide to Document Management Systems (Second Edition).”  It is available from Technolawyer here.

In reviewing the document, I was pleased that it has stood up fairly well. The obvious change is the growth of web access modules and the ability to link to the iPad.  NetDocuments continues to dominate the cloud-based document management world without any serious contenders.

Most of the “new” offerings are store and forward systems that don’t really fulfill the two basic requirements for document management: that is, they don’t integrate with all your programs and they don’t oblige users to use them. With the new cloud-based offerings, you might wonder if there is a paradigm change in what constitutes document management. I'll be addressing that issue in the near future.