Legal News & Articles

Last year I wrote an article entitled “Is the Legal Industry Ready for SharePoint?”, as I had just gotten back from ILTA with fresh questions in my mind from inquiring customers about using the platform as a Document Management System (DMS), in lieu of Autonomy Worksite or OpenText DOCS Open. The article was a simple walk through on the viability of moving to SharePoint as a DMS in a law firm.

I’d like to expand on that topic now and share with you some of my experiences with respect to recent client engagements of this type.

Editor's Note: This article serves as part 2 of the article mentioned above.

We earlier reported that Google (news, site) has set aside US$ 500 million from its 1Q 2011 earnings for a possible settlement with the Department of Justice for a yet-undisclosed issue. Sources indicate that this is likely due to Google's running of ads from illegal pharmacies.

The Asia Pacific region is keen on cloud computing, as we earlier reported. This is one of the premises by which the Asia Cloud Computing Association (news, site) was built on. The consortium stands to face difficulties in certain markets, though, and will need to muscle up in order to attain its goal of promoting the adoption of cloud computing initiatives in the region.

Enterprises in the Asia Pacific region are eager to adopt cloud-based services, according to recent studies. With this in mind, service providers are gaining ground in the region by signing up new clients through collaboration and networking with local organizations. Document collaboration service provider Workshare (news, site) is one such SaaS provider that has recently announced expanding into the Asia-Pacific region starting with China.

We spoke recently spoke with David Bayer, vice president of marketing, at Stratify (news, site) about what’s ahead for technology innovation in the legal space.

The short answer: innovation isn’t always driven by technology. For the long answer -- read along.

The eDiscovery industry has garnered a lot of attention. Whether it’s the costs associated with the process or the burden on lawyers to carry out discovery, companies need to implement an effective knowledge and records management model. Many vendors are stepping up to the plate and offer their strategies and services for how to best manage information.

Recently, IBM announced the launch of eDiscovery Analyzer, a new conceptual search and content analysis software that aims to help legal professionals accelerate eDiscovery.

Of late, law is getting a lot of help from the enterprise CMS side of the fence.

Interwoven has just announced the availability of a solution for the legal world, which just today also earned a committed pledge from Open Text and Microsoft.

But while OT and Microsoft focus on the document management and collaborative aspects of the lawful entanglement, Interwoven has devoted its energies to search. The new suite improves indexing for email, contracts and other documents, thereby simplifying the process for finding what you need.

Icing on the cake? Hierarchical access privileges enable use of the platform on mobile phones. (We’re going to blame the iPhone for this one.)

ECM goliath Open Text has just announced the development of a fledgling integrated solution with Microsoft. The pair hope to build an offering for matter lifecycle management and practice support, targeting global law firms.

It might be safe to say most companies are only as good as the strength of their record-keeping. This cannot be more true than it is in the corporate legal industry, where the difference between government compliance and non-compliance is dependent on proper and efficient data organization and delivery.

UK-based Altien has just released Altien for Corporate Legal, an Enterprise CMS offering for legal departments that deals with the document management and workflow needs of in-house staff.