Comments on: Give them a free DMS!

By: artis

artis — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:49:23 +0000

Its not trainee’s that have the problem picking up DMS systems , its the Post It note Partners who qualified when the Quill was still in use.

By: Bei_Fang_Houzi

Bei_Fang_Houzi — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:14:11 +0000

Certainly a good idea but IMHO the whole DMS situation needs a full review from the bottom up. I’ve recently interviewed various Partners, IT Directors and CIOs for the Hong Kong Legal IT Forum and on the whole the consensus was that;
- If firms are honest they haven’t seen a full ROI from their DMS systems
- DMSs are seen by many as being too complicated to use and hence don’t get used

Why don’t they use them, it’s what they asked for right?
- Yes they wanted document version control
- They wanted something that sit’s in their email client
- They wanted the ability to share documents easily

BUT one they wanted and never got because they cannot agree on it is a standard naming convention for documents and emails. What the industry needs is a combination of a type of ISSN naming convention and a very good search engine for unstructured docs. Now if this is taught at law school we’re on to a winner.

As for open source software – why not?

By: Krystan Honour

Krystan Honour — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:06:20 +0000

An open source dms is a good idea, however it is always prefereable, in my opinion, for the larger players to discount heavily to academic institutions, this means that the tools in use in the ‘real world’ find those still training, I think however you may see the need for this dwindling as a more tech savvy generation starts to saturate firms, they will demand this sort of system and not have a built in resistance.

This type of change where people manage huge amounts of documentation is always unnerving to those who may be used to physical boxes and files, most national libraries are also facing this exact issue with their catalogers.

For now people getting the software in is a good idea but change can never really happen until the more senior in an organisation fully embrace it.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:06:06 +0000

Agree with that, maybe for accounting reasons a discounted model maybe easier for them to do too.

An open source DMS would be great, it would have to have a very flexible nature as I can’t see the legal vertical being the primary focus of any open source software.

By: Someone Else

Someone Else — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:15:08 +0000

It wouldn’t have to be free as such, just hugely discounted like other software is to educational institutions (take a look at how little they pay for Microsoft Office, for example).

Alternatively, I’d love to see an open-source DMS. It seems like the kind of thing that would get used quite a bit.