For a while I’ve been meaning to do a post on document collaboration, especially as working on documents with the client is such a key part of a lawyers work. In a typical law firm this collaboration is through backwards and forwards emailing of the document to the client.
I’ve had some more thoughts on this recently whilst doing a number of workshops on email management, a large portion of email traffic for a lawyer being this transmission of documents back and forth! To be fair this process works reasonably well, especially when you’ve got version controlled documents in your DMS (Document Management System) and tools like Workshare are thrown into the mix, either for use in comparison (e.g. using the Compare functionality or Deltaview as it was once called) or for power users using tools like the collaboration in Workshare Professional to track the multiple amends from various parties.
However I had a nagging feeling return that underlying all this was the email system and really this wasn’t what email was designed for. Surely there is a better way to do this?
So first off when I originally thought about this post it was Google Docs that had prompted the feeling above, with its ability to share the document in the cloud. This basically cuts down on the multiple copies of the document. Instead of attaching the document to an email and sending out to multiple people (= multiple copies) you create your document on the internet and invite people in to collaborate in real time. One click and they can edit and save the document online. One copy, always up to date!
For a brilliant explanation of Google Docs watch this video : Google Docs in Plain English.
Then this week I came across an article in my RSS feed for a product called DocVerse, a document collaboration plug in for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. For me this brings the benefits of Google Docs, with its online collaboration and real time document editing with a number of parties, together with the power of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint which I’m guessing is the standard for most law firms. This for me is the ideal solution.
Again take a look at this video explanation from the DocVerse suppliers.
This real time collaboration has to be the way forward. There is a but though and thus I think full adoption of this technology may be a few years off yet. The but is that there are a few hurdles IT depts and risk management functions need to get over first. The major one being “the cloud” itself. I read an article online yesterday that posed a question :
“Would you use a cloud-based service to store critical infrastructure documentation?”
45% said they’d consider it
36% said no way!
only 20% said definitely
That’s only 1 in 5 that would definitely be happy storing their documents in the cloud! Maybe someone good in math would be able to work out the odds therefore of you and your client being happy? And for this reason I think for large adoption this may take time, however for small firms who can move quicker than the large firms maybe the take up will be faster.
Great article Jason. The issues with Google Docs itself for law firms is of course the limited functionality when compared with Word – and the fact that you still cannot set it up with UK English as its default language(Yes, really!).
The key issue though is that of document security and I think that small firms rushing to use solutions such as that are at considerable risk of serious confidentiality issues – for a perfect example, see the leaking of confidential Twitter corporate data from Google Docs.
I would love to be pushing this kind of thing in my (small) firm, but have major reservations on this basis.
The biggest issue I see with law firms using Google Docs is their terms and conditions. Here’s an extract:
11. Content licence from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.
(just posted on the Workshare Blog)
The latest blog posting from No Option for Law Firm! highlights a number of key issues regarding document management, email management, security and collaboration for Lawyers.
Document management provides key components by providing version control, security, audit trails and tracking and now more features for email management. However, the issue remains that once a document leaves this repository environment, all control for documents vanishes. You lose version control, security, tracking, and of course any hope of collaborating efficiently.
The convergence of document management, office productivity applications, email and the dramatic rise of Microsoft SharePoint provides the perfect platform to deliver fully integrated real time document collaboration solutions. The key to the success of changing the way people work is by not changing the way they work.
Here at Workshare we are working to embrace this (r)evolution. We have been hard at work on a whole host of enhancements to make it easier and safer for people to come together and work on documents without changing the way they work.
For the better part of 2009 Workshare engineers have been taking a close look at Office 2010 and we are excited about the new enhancements that will enable Workshare customers to leverage a truly integrated collaboration platform. The next major versions of Workshare’s desktop and server solutions, codenamed Himalaya, will take advantage of many of the Office 2010 enhancements.
Workshare, as the name suggests, was founded on the concept of collaboration and sharing. 2010 is going to be a very exciting year and we can’t wait to start telling Customers about some of the exciting enhancements that are coming. The upcoming EMEA User Group meeting in London on December 8th is the first opportunity to get a sneak peak, and I’m sure events in the US are not far behind.
Great Post !
Another issue with “sending to the other side” is when the other side send it back the formatting is all wrong. I have been thinking for a while about some sort of central system which you would try and get every law firm to sign up to and post their styles on there. Then the firm who starts the document “owns” it and the other side have access to their styles and use them for any amendments. Ok so every law firm out there probably wouldn’t sign up but if you could get the UK top 100 atleast I’m sure it would help things – who knows maybe it could go global. Maybe you could have some kind of password per transaction if people had reservations about posting their styles to the world. Anyway the reason I’m linking it to this is maybe it could become part of a DocServe solution …. ?
DocVerse* (DocServe does sound more fitting though …)
Artis, that would be a great idea. It’s one of the big issues we see too. Keeping Word documents styled correctly requires skilled secretarial or WP staff and in the times of cost saving and more onus on the Fee Earners to do typing some tool to manage styles would be great.
Something like this for example ?
http://ukdeg.org/
This document excellence group is helpful and our word people use it often. However with the Google Docs or DocVerse idea I think someone has a huge opportunity (if that’s the way things go) to provide a solution that really benefits us all with regards to formatting. So each firm would have their styles and documents along with a choice of “shared” word processing application on the cloud. They then open a document, the app finds who “owns” it and loads their styles into the application (all on the cloud).
I have been speaking to some of our word experts about this and one or two little things came up like grammar consistencies but nothing a popup window on opening word couldnt explain , otherwise they think it would be ideal.
Any other downsides people can think of ?
I can’t think of any downsides to the overall principal. Even better if Microsoft (we all use Word right?) separated in a much better way the style and the content.
For example your content could be XML and then if there was a legal standard for the style markup everyone could just apply their styles on the document content once the content is finalised!
Or is that too simplistic?
Please check out Content Circles (www.contentcircles.com) as well. Content Circles is a peer-to-peer team collaboration solution that works right on your desktop (Mac and Windows) with you existing desktop applications (Word, Excel, Illustrator, etc.) as well as integrates with existing enterprise repositories such as Microsoft SharePoint, Alfresco Enterprise, Xerox DocuShare and Google Docs.
We would love to get your feedback on the product.
Microsoft will be offering a lot of this functionality in the Office 2010 with Sharepoint 2010 combination. You may want to investigate this.
http://www.microsoft.com/2010/en/