SharePoint–Changing the Game
by Julie Wade
There’s a relatively new product
out of Redmond that could
change law firm management
as we know it today. Microsoft SharePoint,
the ultimate collaboration and case management
tool, is starting to be used by
AmLaw 100 and will filter its way down
into everyday use by most law firms within
a few years.
SharePoint portals are completely
secure internal Web sites with a central
document library for accessing shared
workspaces and documents, as well as
housing specialized applications such as
discussion boards, calendars, task lists,
contact information, alerts, and much
more.
I was introduced to SharePoint at an all
day conference hosted by AIIM in Houston
back in April 2008. I learned that
Enterprises are extensively using SharePoint portals for their records management
compliance efforts. So, I was anxious
to talk with someone who is actually
using SharePoint within the law firm setting.
I wanted to see if law firms are going
to incorporate with the Enterprise and
their records management SharePoint portals.
Fortunately for me, Andy Jurczyk,
who is the Chief Information Officer of
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP,
agreed to talk with me about SharePoint
for this column. Mr. Jurczyk is responsible
for the strategic planning and direction
of technology for Sonnenschein, and is
equally excited about SharePoint’s future
within the law firm setting as I am. Mr.
Jurczyk told me that he thinks there is a
compelling argument for SharePoint
because most all of his AmLaw 100 CIO
counterparts are thinking about how to
utilize SharePoint portals.
In a nutshell, Microsoft SharePoint is
the law firm’s first total content management
repository that can be used to handle
everything from document management
and conflicts checks, through records
management and archiving, and project
management of document reviews and
productions.
Sonnenschein currently has over 6 million
documents full-text indexed in its
SharePoint servers, according to Jurczyk,
“and all new firm business is ported into
SharePoint as well.”
Microsoft SharePoint streamlines your
communications process and helps you
collaborate on documents by providing a
secure place to house large document collections,
collaboratively edit any specific
documents you are working on with team
members, clients and experts, and allows
you to replace long strings of email conversations
about relevant documents and
the whatnot with an efficient use of the
discussion board feature of the site.
“SharePoint will become one of those
products you rarely get to see that become
game changing,” Jurczyk said, “in the
same sense that email did for us years ago;
because, for the first time we have a viable
tool that provides us with an unprecedented
capability to search information, and
we have the ability to pull that information
from various databases into a single, easy-to-use web interface.”
Other nifty applications that can be
used on the Web portals are your case calendars
and task lists. The bottom line is
that you can create just about anything
you want to on a SharePoint site. They are
as individualized and customized as your
cases and teams. Because you have 100%
control over the access and privileges to
the information housed on the internal
Web sites, virtually all information is
effortlessly managed and shared with the
people who need to have access to it.
“There’s a lot you can do with this
product—there is a lot of flexibility,” Jurczyk
said. “We like the consistent user
interface that provides an access point into
many of the firm’s systems, and aggregating
the data is easy.” I am anxious to see if
law firms tap into their client’s SharePoint
sites to use them as an extension for future
document productions.
Third-Party Enterprise software developer,
EMC Corporation, has created
SharePoint applications for the Enterprise
for records management that allow you to
search across platforms and servers, house
relevant search results, and lock the files
down on the SharePoint portal. So you
can view relevant files, tag, sort, filter and
code; but, you cannot save over a document,
or move a file from the site at all.
This means there won’t ever be lost emails
or privileged information leaking out
again with SharePoint. EMC has also
developed eRoom, a SharePoint portal for
use by law firms in collaborating on documents
with their clients, team members or
experts.
Mr. Jurczyk thinks the largest possible
impact SharePoint may have for the law
firm is to change the search paradigm for
us. “I think it will affect what production
houses do for us. More and more of the
information that is viable is electronic. We
will see much less OCR work. SharePoint
is capable of creating a full-text searchable
index of electronic records that are available
from many disparate data sources and
you are able to view that in one common
easy-to-use user interface.”
Mr. Jurczyk said that law firms can customize
their SharePoint portals that will
outperform any of the litigation support
products that are available in the market
today. He said that although he is disappointed
about how little the litigation support
vendors have done with developing
SharePoint applications, he is optimistic
about SharePoint’s future. “Look at what
EDD has done to us,” Jurczyk said. “And
it’s just the beginning of what I think the
explosion is. So, let’s take a strategic view
into the future and try and understand
what these new needs are and use a new
tool to do it with. I think we have the
opportunity here for somebody innovative.”
Julie Wade is a Certified Electronic Discovery
Specialist at Harrison, Bettis, Staff,
McFarland and Weems in Houston, Texas.
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