Like many industries, the lawyers and legal professionals are turning to digital technology to streamline their workflows and simplify the litigation process. One of the primary tools in this process remains e-Discovery, which is short for electronic discovery. Electronic discovery comprises two disputing parties that are providing one another with information relevant to the case through electronically stored information (ESI). Types of ESI can include:
- Emails
- Documents
- Websites
- Instant messaging (IM) chats
- CAD files
- CAM files
Any electronic file can be considered ESI and can be used in their raw data form or investigated forensically using metadata. Increases in the use of e-Discovery methodologies and other trends such as increasing types of ESI, the use of collaborative platforms, changes in e-Discovery workflows that include analytics, and changes in privacy laws have all impacted the way in which law firms use this technology.
At its core, e-Discovery relies on the organization of electronic documents for ease of access, sharing, review, and editing in a safe, secure, and protected environment. That makes document management the perfect partner to any e-Discovery setting.
The Benefits of Document Management for e-Discovery
Three of the industries most likely to gain advantages from an MPS environment are healthcare, education, and legal services. The reason? All these industries are paper-heavy businesses that handle a lot of sensitive data. They typically operate on tight budgets, and they are all fast-paced businesses that need the ability to scale quickly. The benefits of print management for organizations within these industries is measurable. Let’s take a quick look at some basic advantages for each industry:
Compliance and Security is Job One
Law firms and legal offices handle a plethora of highly sensitive information, making it necessary to maintain compliance with a host of data privacy regulations such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and others. With such a diversity of rules and regulations, law firms need an overarching document management solution (DMS) that will not only help to organize information but protect it as well.
Fortunately, DMS’ are designed to do just that.
Tackling Document Security
First and foremost, document management software will help your firm better protect sensitive data. There are many ways this is accomplished, but three of the most important include access control, frequent backups, and change audits and version control. Through access control, administrators can provide instant access to authorized personnel — or retract access when staffing changes or other elements occur. Routine backups are typically performed through a third party, such as your cloud provider, to provide additional redundancy. Data is also encrypted for deeper security. Finally, each document can be audited and followed to determine who has made changes, if any, and when. Versioning prevents accidental or unauthorized loss of data.
Organization is Key
The whole reason for document management systems is to create an environment of easily accessible information. In the legal industry, a robust DMS can streamline workflows and amplify efficiency to make e-Discovery processes faster and more accurate than ever before. Documents can be searchable via keywords, key phrases, dates, or any other number of assignable factors, for fast, easy access to critical information. This information is accessible in one database, so there is no more worry over lost or misplaced files. Archiving, changing, editing, and sharing is all done in an intuitive, easy-to-understand way that greatly simplifies the process, giving your attorneys and legal assistants more time to focus on mission-critical tasks.
Trust Doing Better Business for Leading-Edge Document Management
At Doing Better Business, we understand that your time is money, especially if you are running a legal office. But not only do you want to simplify the processes you use to conduct business, but you also want to manage risk and ensure compliance with any necessary regulations.
Our leading-edge DMS solutions can help your legal office transform processes to make repetitive tasks such as e-Discovery simpler and more elegant. Our DMS’ have built-in security protocols for enhanced compliance as well as back up and disaster recovery features that help you keep business running in the event of data loss or theft. Your data becomes organized, accessible, and trackable and your staff more productive when you adopt a DMS-based approach to e-Discovery.
Transform your e-Discovery process today. Contact a representative from Doing Better Business and learn how our document management solutions can improve and enhance the way you do business.