Prepress
Open Text Solutions Help Law Firms Boost Productivity, Lower Costs and Enhance Regulatory Compliance
Thursday 05. February 2009 - Firms Turn to Integrated Open Text ECM Offering to Stay Competitive in Tough Global Business Environment
The global recession has hit home in the legal industry, leading to cost-cutting measures like pay cuts and layoffs. For many firms, another answer is to turn to technology solutions such as those from Open Text(TM) (NASDAQ:OTEX)(NASDAQ:TSX:)(NASDAQ:OTC), a global leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM), that can help law firms streamline administrative functions, ensure compliance, reduce malpractice risks and, most importantly, improve productivity and increase billable hours.
Among the firms turning to Open Text is Dirkzwager, a 270-person law firm based in the Netherlands, which has selected Open Text Legal Information Management for Microsoft(R) SharePoint(R) to bring a matter-centric view to its existing SharePoint installation. The firm anticipates this will allow attorneys and staff to work in the familiar SharePoint Server 2007 environment while managing client matters according to strict business processes. The firm also plans to integrate the solution with its financial systems to give at-a-glance views to such financial data as outstanding invoices and profitability.
“Open Text clearly understands the business requirements of law firms and has translated that expertise into a SharePoint solution that reflects the way we operate,” said Jeroen Zweers, Manager IT and Internal Services at Dirkzwager. “We anticipate that when this solution is fully deployed across our offices later this year it will greatly improve the productivity of our lawyers, extend collaboration, and provide better document controls and processes.”
One of the more difficult challenges facing law firms today is how to make the most of email as a communication tool and still meet compliance policy requirements. Time-consuming email filing tasks, for example, are difficult to impossible to deploy on a firm-wide basis. That’s why the automatic filing capabilities of the Open Text eDOCS email filing solution was so appealing to Keker & Van Nest LLP.
“We selected Open Text for email filing because we wanted to be sure that we were meeting the requirements of our firm’s compliance policy,” said Steven McCue of Keker & Van Nest LLP. “Using the email auto filer from Open Text, attorneys will be able to file emails into Outlook folders just like they always have and emails will be “magically” filed in the document management system under the correct case. This not only ensures compliance, but boosts productivity since attorneys can see at a glance that a message has already been filed and retrieve it quickly as needed. One of the major reasons that we have selected this product is to better enable us to search for emails after the fact and to eliminate PST file management issues.”
Keker & Van Nest LLP will also be implementing Open Text’s email bulk filing module that files emails in the background on a server, rather than on attorneys’ laptops or workstations. Instead of having to wait for several hundred emails to load into the document management system, attorneys can return to working on case-related tasks immediately. The firm will be using the email filing assistant module for attorneys who want more control but still need the help of a suggested filing location. This module will also allow secretaries to file email efficiently to a case location based on where related emails have been filed in the past.
Open Text is a leading global provider of ECM solutions for law firms, with a full range of solutions and legal industry expertise to support law firms’ business practices and proactive compliance needs throughout the matter lifecycle – from client intake through to final disposition. Currently, 70 percent of the AmLaw 100 firms are using Open Text’s content management solutions.