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regional wrap-up Server farms dedicated to lawyers' needs solely to legal clients. "Business has used these for years," he says. G Large companies and governments can bear the formidable associated cost of having their own private network. Business first recognized the need for a shared or private system, and server farms emerged as a solution. Procknow says that trend has deepened in the past few years and now companies like his are moving to serve niche clients such as the legal community. Server farms are essentially a collection of com- puters able to hold large amounts of data. They are hooked together and centralized in a corporate of- fice, such as that operated by Vancouver's Search- light to serve information to clients. There may be a collection of servers at one site. Companies like Searchlight place "host" data onto a server on be- half of a legal firm or firms. At any given time, Procknow's firm (one of about three major server farms in Canada offering hosting for the legal community) has 20 to 30 cases, from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., on his company's servers. One U.S. case links 54 lawyers in Canada and the U.S. together. The advantages are numerous, says Procknow, but "it really cuts down on travelling," and shipping costs. "It is being driven by the client," he says, as the client does not want to pay the cost of printing out large files, photocopying, and shipping hard copy to lawyers in Canada, the U.S., or abroad. Conversely, legal offices today are hesitant to undertake the cash outlay and expense needed to upgrade their own in-house hardware to download or handle large volume files. "It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars," Procknow says. The solution has become companies such as Searchlight, which will post the data on a centrally hosted site that is pri- vate. Essentially, the legal firm is renting time and technology. Searchlight provides software that allows individuals access to documents posted. Information can be staged on a need-to- know basis, Procknow says. The system offers lawyers who may be thousands of miles apart or at other branches of the firm the ability to work on a file any time of the day. The site can be accessed via a home computer. Individuals can tag the read-only documents. As Procknow says, one lawyer can place his name tag on sections of the documents and, when later talking to a co-counsel, refer that individual to his tagging notes. Sections can also be high- lighted. However, the documents' content cannot be altered. In the U.S., says Procknow, lawyers are finding that private ary Procknow, president and CEO of Searchlight Sys- tems Ltd., says one of the new growth areas in legal technology is the hosting of server farms dedicated hosting can allow a range of support staff — no matter their location — to work with documents. U.S. law firms, faced with lengthy and costly reviews of hefty case files, are turning to countries such as India, where labour costs are low, to obtain thorough searches of what may amount to hundreds of thou- sands of pages of information. The search can tag im- portant features relating to a merger, a case for litigation, or a negotiation. No hard documents are shipped. In Canada, he says, branch offices or law firms are finding that the system facilitates the ease of consulting with an expert or specialist law firm. The expert — legal, forensic, or otherwise — can be brought into the system to review a file, or section of it, and provide opinion. This extends the ability to link to expert opinions internation- ally without shipping large files. "A person can be on the system in an hour." When the expert is finished consulting, the individual can be locked out. Another factor in the growing use is the inter- national nature of business conducted out of the port city of Vancouver, and from Canada in gener- al, says Procknow. "Think about it — there are some countries where you don't want to ship company documents if you are doing a merger." While hosting has been popular with large files, it has also been used for smaller ones involving only a few boxes of docu- ments. This is usually where a smaller office does not want to tie up clerical staff or where partners within a firm may be travelling or away from the office. Procknow says a lawyer on vacation could keep tabs on a case or read new documents posted. (Additions are deletions are done through Procknow's office). It's also proving popular for home-office users or for lawyers at home on maternity leave. It becomes a way of "staying in the loop" even though the person may be away from the office, says Procknow. On returning to the office, they can remain con- nected to that case or file. It can also play that role in the event of a prolonged illness. The sites are secure, Procknow says, adding that there are sev- eral layers of security to pass through before accessing the infor- mation. The in-house training is done using a combined internet and telecommuting system. The individual can access the site and be prompted by a Vancouver trainer as to how the system works. "Legal work is leaning more and more towards hosting," he says. "I don't have a number, but there has been a lot of growth in recent years." — JEAN SORENSEN jean_sorensen@telus.net www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com M ARCH 2008 7