Today, when we talk about documents we must include e-mail, faxes, electronically filed pleadings and spreadsheets — as well as word processing files. And we are relieved to know that we can use computer software to organize e-documents as logically as we use file folders to organize paper.
Legal-specific document management software is designed to help you organize and manage documents. It can:
- Create a file folder structure, based on your configuration.
- Automatically file documents into that structure.
- Create a text index that makes document retrieval faster.
- Present lists of documents quickly.
- Create an assurance that you will be able to find documents and that none will be lost.
- Let you ask for documents in the way you think about them (“Bill wrote it last summer and it contained the word “bandsaw.”) instead of wondering where the summer intern might have put the document.
- Eliminate the need to train new staff members on where to save documents.
- Provide easy migration to new servers (no more wondering if all of your documents arrived on your new computer).
- Provide portability when you are working on a laptop. (When you return to the server, the software knows where to put the documents you created or changed.)
