Real Improvements in Efficiency and Communication
The technologies discussed on this page may not yet be considered essential for every department, but they are essential if we are to make real improvements in the way corporate legal departments operate. As always, think simplification and integration. You don't want to have more devices to carry and more programs to learn. The best devices and the best programs perform more than one function and work seamlessly with the other applications in your office. All this is leading to improved Knowledge Management.
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Intranet - You need to be able to provide your company's employees, wherever they are located, with information, resources, and training.
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Extranets - Virtual deal rooms, virtual litigation repositories, and more, can improve communication and efficiency. The best practice management systems will allow you to set up extranets from within the system, thereby having the information integrated with your other systems rather than residing in a separate system.
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The Universal In-Box - All your communications (email, voice mail, fax, etc.) available in one place. Ideally, this would be integrated with your overall practice management system.
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The Paperless Office - To make everything work together, you really need to go paperless, to the extent possible.
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Corporate Secretary Function - Ideally, this will be integrated with your practice management system.
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Advanced Document Technologies - Document-intensive practices may benefit from some additional document-specific programs, such as automatic redlining and automatic proofing.
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Electronic Billing - Nobody likes dealing with bills. You can waste a lot of time dealing with paper statements from your law firms. Implemented properly, electronic billing should simplify and streamline your billing approval and payment processes, get real-time cost information into your practice management system, improve relations with outside counsel, and allow you to generate useful management reports.
Last updated: 04/13/01