The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50824
Others can subsequently search for the document by requesting documents matching one or more of these proper- ties. At first, lawyers and staff may find it time-consuming to fill out the pro- file card and may be tempted to take shortcuts. For example, they may not want to spend time to determine the appropriate document type and simply save all documents as the same type but this will make it a lot harder to find in the future. Again, it is necessary to sufficiently train your staff to profile documents in a standardized manner. When the profiles are done right, the documents are much easier to find down the road. Also, it is useful to customize the DMS software so users can only select from a small number of options in fields such as document type. By giving users fewer options, they can profile docu- ments more quickly. This problem also tends to solve itself over time. People often have an epiphany when they go back to search for one of their own documents and suddenly realize they can't find it because they didn't profile it properly. From then on, these people tend to be more diligent in their profiling. People abuse the check-in and check-out feature A DMS allows a user to check out a docu- ment and reserve it for a period of time. For example, a user may want to check out a document and prevent anyone else from making any edits to the document while a client is reviewing it. Once the client returns the document the user can check it back in. As mentioned, people are comfortable with saving documents to their personal folders. Even though other people can still access documents in their personal folder when the folder is on a shared drive, hav- ing the document in their personal folder gives people a feeling they are in control. This feeling of control may be lost when using a DMS because of a sense of putting your stuff into a communal pot. During the early phases of DMS implementation, some people may ntitled-3 1 become overly controlling of their documents, unnecessarily checking out dozens of documents because they are afraid that other people might acciden- tally delete or edit them without autho- rization. Again, the best tool in this situation is patience. People will even- tually realize that nobody will delete their documents when they aren't look- ing. To prevent accidental deletions, we adjusted our default security settings so only our system administrator has the authority to delete documents from the DMS. Users may queue documents for deletion but only our system adminis- trator can do the deed. Jason Leung practises intellectual prop- erty law and is the director of knowledge management at Ridout & Maybee LLP in Toronto. Jason can be contacted at jleung@ridoutmaybee.com. Practice Management LexisNexis® PCLaw® Accounting software that SPEAKS LEGALESE. PCLaw® billing and accounting software combines what you need to track your time and money all in one system — from time and billing to trust accounting, cheque writing, financial statements, client identification and verification, automatic backup, offline file management, advanced reporting tools and more. Best of all, it's easy to use and ready to go to work instantly. Download and Try PCLaw for FREE* For more information, call 1-800-328-2898 or visit www.lexisnexis.ca/pclaw. * Download PCLaw free for 30 days. Certain conditions apply. LexisNexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used under licence. PCLaw is a registered trademark of LexisNexis Practice Management Systems Inc. © 2011 LexisNexis Canada Inc. All rights reserved. www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com JUNE 2011 21 12/9/10 4:12:40 PM