What is the Best Document Management Software for Law Firms?
Every modern small business needs an efficient way to manage documents digitally. For law firms, that’s a little more challenging, given the sensitive nature of most documents.
So, as well as being easy to use, scalable, secure, and collaborative so that your legal team can be productive, it must look after compliance with the legal industry regulations and standards.
That’s easier said than done.
A mind boggling array of legal document management software (DMS) options exist and it can be a challenge to sort through to find what you need.
We’ve done much of the legwork for you and pass on the following insight to help you find what you’re looking for:
- Security
- Ease of use
- Mobility (access and edit documents anywhere)
- Scalability
- Collaboration options
- Version control
- Search and OCR functionality
The document management software you choose should be designed for use in your specific type of law firm i.e. for the type of legal issues that make up the bulk of your client cases.
Say your firm specializes in disputes and litigation. Ask yourself whether the DMS software you are considering can handle the types of documents associated with these types of cases before committing.
What’s more, your chosen document management system should be able to store and manage all documents, notes, emails and other kinds of data for each matter together in one place.
Maintaining industry compliance is a key requirement of any legal DMS.
Your chosen DMS should feature the latest encryption software to maintain strict confidentiality and timestamp documents with the dates accessed. It should also include support for multi-factor authentication, a security mechanism that keeps your client data secure.
Your DNS needs to securely integrate with your email system and be able to access and easily locate relevant communications.
This will increase efficiency and help you meet the expectations of your clients and colleagues.
Document tagging is far from unique to the legal industry but law firms have a greater need for this feature than many other types of businesses.
Tagging documents help you organize them by content and file type, so that summons, motions, complaints, contracts, and so on can be easily located.