The ultimate guide to legal document management

Each year, a law firm handles thousands of paper and digital documents. And any industry that typically manages thousands of documents also offers individual organisations the opportunity to gain a more decisive competitive advantage.

Paper processes, for example, can be significantly improved by the right technology solutions and systems, such as legal document management software, thereby creating cost and time efficiencies and enabling staff to focus on high-value activities.

While legal firms can significantly benefit from technology-supported processes, poor processes can negatively impact client satisfaction and pose security and compliance risks. The bottom line: effective legal document management practices and procedures will result in greater efficiency and the potential to increase billable hours.

A document management software solution can capture, organise, share, and manage all your documents in a central, secure repository. Furthermore, when security is paramount, as in legal document management, an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution can help efficiently manage and track security and compliance requirements.

The importance of legal document management and its impact on legal firms

Managing documents, email, and other content is critical for lawyers in any practice. By implementing a content management solution, your firm can increase efficiency, productivity, and security.

In a law firm, there are several ways to track, manage, and store documents. Document management can be paper-based (e.g. filing cabinets and archive boxes), digital or a blend of both. However, a digital approach offers significant advantages over a paper-based solution, such as full-text search, version control, the ability to lock down access to specific users, and categorisation based on client, date, or other attributes.

Digital systems are usually either locally hosted or cloud-based. When hosted locally, documents are stored on the firm's servers and are often accessible only in the office. With a cloud-based system, content is securely stored in the cloud and is available to authorised users from any device, anywhere.

While some legal documents still require physical records, document management software has significantly streamlined processes and reduced the need for manual, paper-based systems.

Legal document management security

The security of documents in a law firm is of supreme consequence, and not having a secure file management system in place exposes both your firm and your clients to risk. Sensitive legal documents have traditionally been secured in locked filing cabinets in offices with additional physical security systems. The concept of securing documents is the same whether they are stored in a digital system. Electronic document management should include encryption (while content is being stored, managed, sent or created) and regular secure backups.

A professional management solution will include document security classification and associated user access rights. Controlling who can access documents ensures that only authorised people can create, view, edit, or delete content.

How effective document management is key to compliance 

A legal firm’s document management policy should be aligned with retention schedules required by law, and compliance with those requirements can be audited.

With an ECM solution, compliance is made simple. Set up your retention schedules within the system, and there will never again be the risk that the wrong archive box is shredded. If your firm is audited, ECM supports straightforward document retrieval, rather than the time-consuming manual search through physical documentation.

More efficient and productive employees

Searching for and retrieving documents is one of the most time-consuming tasks employees can perform. Whether rifling through filing cabinets for physical materials or searching a poorly-tagged database of digital content (using a folder structure), employees are, on average, spending 36 per cent of their day looking for information.

Thanks to ECM, legal and administrative staff can potentially regain hours of the workday. Additionally, a cloud-based ECM solution enables authorised users to access documents from any location.

As well as regaining a significant number of productive hours, ECM can give a legal organisation or department the tools to securely collaborate on documents, limit duplication of work, manage version control, and archive anything not currently required.

With increased productivity comes increased employee engagement, improved retention and agility, and ultimately competitive advantage as individuals and whole organisations find applying their knowledge to be both more efficient and rewarding.

A new ECM will change how people work and affect the way documents are managed right across your organisation. It's not an easy or quick decision, but our Enterprise Content Management Checklist will help you consider your options and identify the right ECM to meet your business needs.

KYOCERA Document Solutions supports Australian and New Zealand businesses on their digital transformation journey with innovative products and software solutions.