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New York, NY February 3, 2006

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Using SharePoint in the Real World

contributed by Ron Sharpe

The real-world complexities of a law firm's information management requirements can sometimes exceed software's capabilities. Just as every explorer needs a Swiss-army knife in her pack, every law firm needs a versatile software application that can help address a variety of tasks large and small, tasks that may not be addressed efficiently or cost-effectively by other software packages.

Enter Microsoft's SharePoint software, bundled at no additional cost in its basic but still quite functional flavor as a part of Windows Server 2003.

SharePoint provides a powerful, cost-effective way of retrieving, organizing, consolidating, presenting and distributing large quantities of information from diverse sources located inside and outside of a law firm. SharePoint enables the rapid design and deployment of Internet portals that improve communication, foster collaboration both internally and with clients, and help to address the challenges of information overload. This document reviews some specific examples of how SharePoint is and can be used.

Reporting for Clients

Many clients request periodic status reports regarding the matters being handled by their law firms. The processes for gathering information from different attorneys and other participants, organizing and collating, and then distributing the information to clients are often cumbersome and labor-intensive.

SharePoint provides an effective framework for the client reporting process enabling multiple participants to provide report content concurrently. These updates can be performed using a web browser from inside or outside of the office. Security ensures that users can only access and update the report content that they are authorized to see. Upon completion, reports can then be published in SharePoint for client access or quickly exported for delivery to clients in another way.

Client Extranets

In addition to reporting, clients are increasingly requesting / expecting that their counsel provide a secure, convenient, online conduit for the exchange of information and documents including work product, budgets, invoices, etc. SharePoint enables the rapid creation, design and deployment of secure client extranet sites. These extranets are typically based on a standard template used by a law firm and then tuned as necessary to meet the needs of particular clients.

Enterprise Search

Many firms have large collections of information and/or documents that are not easily searched. Examples include intranets, unmanaged document collections, HR materials, frequently used web sites and Exchange public folders. SharePoint's full text search capabilities can be used to "crawl" these data sources, create consolidated indexes, and provide users with integrated search capabilities.

Automated Data Feeds from Courts & Elsewhere

The Internet's unruly sprawl has started to be tamed by a variety of tools, from search engines to automated data feeds to web services that enable programs and systems to communicate across the Internet. For example, the eLaw web service from eLaw LLC (http://www.e-law.com) enables the automated retrieval via the Internet of court conference dates and other key case dates posted by the New York state, federal and civil court systems. FreshPatents.com (http://www.freshpatents.com) provides an RSS feed (an automated feed) of U.S. patent applications. A host of other data feeds related to the practice of law can be found at:
http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/rss_law.html
SharePoint enables this data to be automatically retrieved and posted to the appropriate web pages in a SharePoint environment.

Most firms store electronic data in a variety of software systems and databases including document management, accounting, HR, client contact information, marketing, etc. A comprehensive, unified review of information from these different systems can be quite cumbersome and time-consuming. As a portal platform, SharePoint enables related information from all of these systems to be automatically retrieved and presented in a coherent manner on a single web page or on a set of linked pages.

Web Logs/Blogs

Web logs, commonly referred to as blogs, are becoming increasingly popular in the corporate environment for the fast sharing of information regarding a topic or project or product or person. The new version of SharePoint will provide out-of-the-box templates for blogs.

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