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Management of Documents

Documents are at the heart of a lawyer’s work: creating them, finding them, sharing them, amending them, finalising them, archiving them. 3Kites can help you to manage these key processes in a number of ways:

 Document management systems (DMS)

 Use of know how, templates and document automation

Document management systems (DMS)

The key to successful DMS implementations is to ensure that business requirements are understood and addressed, including the transition from previous systems, migration, and dealing with internal (as opposed to client/matter) documents. It is important to recognise the extent to which the implementation of a new DMS requires a change in working practices and to identify the necessary training and incentives to ensure that the benefits of investing in the system are realised.

One further consideration is the increasing impact of security measures (including information barriers to avoid conflicts) that have the potential to affect existing working practices. We advocate a practical approach to ensure that a sensible balance is maintained to the benefit of practitioners and clients alike.

Use of know how, templates and document automation

In creating and amending documents a lawyer is applying his or her own, and the organisation’s collective, previous experience. Law firms should consider the extent to which this experience can usefully be codified, and how it can best be provided to other lawyers at the appropriate point. This may involve the use of ‘push’ technology where appropriate.

In some circumstances the creation of documents can be automated to improve accuracy and efficiency – in particular where the same information may need to be incorporated in a number of places in a suite of documents. Here it is particularly important to understand and apply the correct balance between providing the lawyer with a ‘good first draft’ and a ‘near final’ product, to ensure that the process of obtaining instructions from the client contributes to the efficient creation of the right documentation. In this way, the document creation process can contribute to more effective matter management.