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In a market where in-house legal teams must control cost, many are seeking to eliminate it completely, at least with respect to their technology budgets. Despite its placement on the last day of the Association of Corporate Counsel's annual conference this month, the "InExpensive/Free Applications for Your Law Department" session captivated an audience of more than 100 people for over an hour.

Mark Donald, associate general counsel of Baltimore-based Vertis Communications, offered attendees a variety of ideas for leveraging open-source technology to streamline operations and eliminate unnecessary expenses.

For example, he encouraged audience members seeking a full-feature, Web-based enterprise document management system to consider the open-source version of KnowledgeTree or the community edition of Alfresco. He similarly recommended that those interested in designing workflow use ProcessMaker and directed audience members to the company’s YouTube channel to see Processmaker in action.

Eager to experiment with ProcessMaker "to interface with the sales effort to prepare contracts," Atlanta-based Polysius Corp. GC Lori Ann Haydu attended this particular session because "I wanted to see how we could do more with less."

That was certainly a theme and Donald provided his peers with options for addressing routine activities with free tools like Open Office, an open-source suite of products for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and other functions, noting that the program provides "baseline Microsoft Office compatibility and supports redlining very well in instances where one may need to quickly review a document on a computer without Microsoft Word." And the creation of PDF documents using open-source Cute PDF Writer intrigued audience members. The discussion of PDF Creator, a program that enables users to create and manipulate PDF documents, generated enthusiastic questions from the audience, although the program is not exactly free (a one-year license costs $29.95).

Rick Ober, the former GC of Summit Bancorp and current GC of Trenton, N.J.-based Isles, a non-profit community development organization, attended for "the opportunity to find three or four small tricks that would make my work easier," and was pleased that he learned about the "PDF cracker."

The economy and financial constraints in general were also a factor. "Many IT departments do not have familiarity with software that is particularly useful to the legal department and many small legal departments do not have a substantial budget," he added.

In addition to PDF tools, Donald’s discussion of open-source encryption programs TrueCrypt and Gpg4win, as well as OphCrack, which allow users to recover Microsoft Windows passwords, and Disk Investigator to search, view and restore deleted files, made an impression as well.

Donald cautiously joked during his discussion that using some of these tools "is an awesome way to break your computer." He also highlighted that the programs mentioned are generally for Windows users only and that Windows 7 may pose compatibility issues.

Regardless of any limitations, David Dresden, senior director of legal administration for Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s Corp., who runs all of the business operations for the legal department, noted: "With internal pressures on cost and headcount, the way we practice law is going to have to change and continue to evolve."

"One of the drivers that will allow us to dramatically improve the practice of law is technology," he added.

Co-presenter Joel Green, GC of Beverly, Mass.-based Altova, offered Web-based resources for finding answers to specific issues, documents and general guidance. He encouraged use of the ACC’s various listservs. In addition, he recommended regional and local meetings of in-house counsel, Legal OnRamp and ABA resources. However, he alerted attendees: "Your competitors or outside counsel may be on those boards as well" and advised them to be circumspect.

Green also instructed audience members to read blogs, including The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Patently-O and others written by law firms, including Sheppard Mullin’s blog on government contracts. "Blogs can be useful because they do provide valuable information on a variety of topics." Another law firm resource included Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s Term Sheet Generator.

Green did not support the use of traditional social networks for substantive matters. "Facebook and LinkedIn are not great for legal research," he said. "It is great if you are trying to keep in touch with your friends in law school, but not great if you are seeking substantive legal input from peers," he added.

Ultimately, the conclusion was to "Find the best 5 or 10 of these tools, use them everyday and you can save serious money," said Donald. Yet, despite the interest in free tools, Haydu remarked, "If a free tool is not going to be enough, then we will look at spending money."

Making the case to spend that money on new technology was the focus of the roundtable discussion that capped off the conference. "It starts with aligning your technology choices with the strategic goals of the company," said Gary Hirsch, senior vice president and GC of Manhattan-based IntraLinks. "The business case for a new solution on the qualitative level will be much more effective if it is consistent with your CEO's mission," he added.

The panel noted that other priorities included setting the foundation for success, preparing for implementation and building an appropriate cross-functional team. "If you can involve other departments early, it will keep you from adopting a system that is not compatible," noted audience member, Maureen Dry-Wasson, assistant GC at Hanover, Md.-based Allegis Group.

That compatibility is critical and presenter David Cambria, director of operations for the legal department at Chicago-based AON Corp., cautioned against building a patchwork "Frankenstein-like" system with a wide variety of applications. Fellow presenter Gabriel Buigas, vice president and deputy GC for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Development, highlighted that to prevent this fragmentation, companies should find tools that, at a minimum, solve 80 percent of the problem at issue. "Be careful about overly customizing because the more you over-engineer these things, the more problems you create," said Buigas.

Whether you are searching for simple cost-effective tools in a down market or implementing complex enterprisewide systems, there is technology available and best practices to follow. The ACC conference helped attendees tap the wisdom of their peers in the corporate counsel community to navigate both roads.

Ari Kaplan, author of the Amazon bestseller "The Opportunity Maker" (Thomson-West 2008), is a legal technology writer and interviews legal professionals for the Law.com Legal Technology blog. Visit www.AriKaplanAdvisors.com for his free special report on "Five Ways to Find Opportunity in a Faltering Economy."