Last Updated on September 23, 2024 Sarah Gayda
Law firms are transitioning rapidly from legacy solutions to digital solutions. Lawyers are shifting attention from preserving business continuity to how to access and protect data while staying productive.
The hasty shift to work from home several years ago caught many legal teams unprepared for remote work. Many lawyers are still working from home without assistants just steps away to help manage data files. Legal teams realize that if case matter isn’t being captured or shared well there are consequences. Those include curbing collaboration on files, hampering productivity, and threatening information security if data transits without protection.
Inefficiencies accessing case matter & unnecessary storage costs
Inefficient discovery may be the first data access issue lawyers encounter. One member of the legal team tries to find case matter and can’t. Or a lawyer uses documents that are out of date and loses hours working on them.
But there are other burgeoning issues including retention. This is not so much about holding onto files long enough as failing to consistently execute on disposition of documents within the prescribed time frame. This leaves them unnecessarily subject to discovery. Further, the impact of inefficient data access and unmonitored storage costs legal teams significant amounts of time and money.
Firms report dissatisfaction with some technology systems
Lawyers may or may not know the term “IG” or information governance. However, the above issues still arise when legal teams don’t have convenient information governance tools in place.
At the same time, when contract management, document management, collaboration/knowledge management, and records management tools are in place, law firms report high degrees of user dissatisfaction.
“In addition to managing their own documents, firms take on significant amounts of data from clients and other sources for every case they work. Different practice areas manage different types of information, but all of it becomes subject to the firm’s data policies. Simultaneously, firms must adhere to each client’s respective outside counsel guidelines, making execution of information governance especially complex for lawyers.” Law Practice Today.
Common hazards law firms should watch for
Lawyers are hard wired to detect risk, but they aren’t infallible. In a high pressure environment focused on moving cases forward, legal teams may be tempted to cut corners in managing data. The work arounds can become productivity hurdles fast. Hazards to watch for:
- Over-use of locally stored files – More content can find its way onto local hard drives, unlikely to be deleted when no longer needed.
- Siloed content – When speed and convenience take priority, content sharing and data security often suffer. Either other lawyers cannot access files or files are shared via upload or email to an unsecured app.
- Shortcutting records management – There may be policies in place to have important content reviewed and retention managed, but the process may break down if content sharing tools aren’t in place. This means records can go undeclared and unclassified.
“What will keep legal teams up at night…The same thing as IT leaders. Data. Across privacy legislation, compliance and security, data in its many forms and massive volumes is bringing new and heightened risk to companies of all sizes.” Law Technology Today
3 steps to get law firm information governance on track
The good news is that if your legal team recognizes these barriers to productivity and information governance are occurring, you can quickly put in place tools to get information capture and retention on track, without slowing down legal teams. Start with these three steps:
1. Simplify capture, collaboration, and legal records management
What do you need to put in place as a foundation to support productivity and information governance for legal teams? There are 4 key priorities:
- Centralize management of information – know where your data resides.
- Automate classification of documents and capture metadata for rapid discovery.
- Apply and enforce retention policies by identifying records that are due for disposition and managing workflows for review, approval, and destruction.
- Ensure compliance with regulatory and client requirements and capture an audit trail of all activity.
Catherine A. Pray and Derek M. Duarte of BlackStone Discovery advise: “Strive to design a workflow that does not involve any data transfer. Remember, every time data is transferred there is a risk of compromise, and every location where a document resides is a potential point for exfiltration that must be secured. Minimize data transfers and minimize data replication at every point possible.” Law Practice Today
If your legal team is on Microsoft 365, you already have a centralized information storage hub with rich capabilities for easy file capture, and automated classification and retention: SharePoint Online. You can bring the tools of SharePoint right into Outlook and the Office apps lawyers use most to make managing and sharing case matter simple.
2. Make capture and classification of case matter convenient
To support adoption of Microsoft 365 tools by legal teams under pressure, you’d be wise not to expect lawyers to change how they work. If your legal team is like most, they use Outlook email, Microsoft Word, and Teams during most hours of their day. They may not even realize that Microsoft 365 is built with SharePoint as it’s information hub. Let them continue to work productively in the tools they know and bring capture, classification, and retention tools into them with Colligo.
3. Bring information governance for law firms into Outlook
Colligo’s Email Manager for Microsoft 365 work lets legal teams conveniently capture and classify case matter, keeping sensitive content protected and supporting records management.
With Colligo Email Manager for Microsoft 365, lawyers can stay in Outlook and save emails to SharePoint, and add retention labels and metadata for quick discovery later. It’s an add-in that brings SharePoint into Outlook to help firms take control of their information governance by making record capture frictionless for lawyers.
Further, legal teams can explore their file repository (SharePoint) right from Microsoft Outlook. Lawyers can search, view, and share links to the latest version of case files right from Outlook. Efficient search and browsing can save lawyers significant time.
Talk to us about how we can enable convenient capture and collaboration on case matter for your legal team. We can have Colligo solutions deployed in minutes without IT involvement.
