Microsoft SharePoint for the Legal Industry?

The perceived return on investments for portals stems from its collaboration and knowledge management benefits. Portals allow users both inside and outside of an organization to share information and access various sources of information. These information sources can be document management, e-billing, matter management or any number of systems. Rather than photocopying, faxing and emailing information, users can upload, download and post files and information. Portals can also display or allow users to access and manipulate project relevant information.

The key is to bring all the documents and information about a project (or matter) to one screen.

We are currently living in an age of information overload. A major benefit of portals is that it provides access to information based on specific criteria that is set by the individual user or administrator. Rather than e-mailing specific documents to team members or directing them to search for a particular document on the document management system, the portal provides direct access to the file. The portal is therefore context specific ' a “litigation portal” or “Janes v. Smith portal” or “new office furniture portal.” The context is dictated by your needs and the portal can be as transient as necessary to complete your goals.

At this year's Legal Tech Conference in New York, Microsoft showcased its portal offering ' SharePoint. That fact indicates that Microsoft is very interested in moving into the legal portal market. In fact, on the SharePoint Web site you can download a template of a SharePoint portal for law departments.

There are currently two flavors of SharePoint – SharePoint Team Services (Team Services) and SharePoint Portal Server (Portal Server). I will discuss each in turn. I will not bore you with all of their features, but give you an idea of some of the features I found useful or lacking.

SharePoint Team Services

Microsoft intends this product to be used by small project groups. I found that this product was extremely easy to install. In fact, I was able to install it on my notebook computer running Windows 2000 Professional. If you don't have SQL Server on your computer, the install program will put MSDE on your machine for a database engine. The only other product you may want to install is Microsoft FrontPage to allow you to make certain modifications to your Team Services site.

I have heard Team Services described as an “intranet on steroids.” It does not share all the characteristics of “traditional” portals, especially its lack of application integration. It does, however, provide a relatively inexpensive project collaboration tool. It has document management capabilities that allow team members to upload and download documents, but without versioning and check-in, check-out functionality. It allows users to create discussion groups, add simple contact information and add events and announcements. In short, it provides the essentials for small team collaboration on a project.

I have set up a Team Services site to manage client engagements and it sure beats emailing hundreds of documents back and forth. Team Services allows users to customize their view of information, and inform people of project events. One feature that I particularly liked was the ability to download an event right to my Outlook calendar. For lawyers, especially those working with mixed teams of inside and outside counsel, I think that Team Services could play a role if the team needed to get a collaboration tool up quickly and needed only rudimentary document management capabilities. I also like the fact that anyone can add content, depending on privileges established by the site administrator.

One capability that is missing in both Team Services and Portal Server is the ability to create sub-folders in document libraries. For those of us who are used to organizing information in hierarchical folders, this is a drawback. The end result is creating a large number of folders to organize information.

The look and feel of Team Services is very easy to modify using Microsoft FrontPage. In fact I was able to connect to my server over the Internet and make site modifications including replacing logos, links, etc. This is in addition to the modifications a user can make already on the Team Services Web site.

If you need to quickly set up a collaboration tool with team members that are not part of your company or firm, Team Services might be a good solution for you. It doesn't have all features of an “industrial strength” portal, or the elements of matter management or document management systems, but it does offer some key collaborative tools that should satisfy many small project needs. Of course, you must make certain that Team Services is compatible with your IT standards and policies. Team Services is not for everyone. You may already have a collaboration tool that works for your organization, or you may have more robust needs.

SharePoint Portal Server

Microsoft's enterprise-wide portal solution is SharePoint Portal Server. The Portal Server is a little more difficult to install. It requires Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server database to be installed on the host machine. Unlike Team Services, it requires a fairly sophisticated technical person to make the SharePoint Portal available over the Internet. For some reason, Microsoft didn't make the Portal Server out-of-the box Internet ready.

The Portal Server provides all of the functionality of Team Services with a few additions. The Portal Server allows for the use of “Web parts” which are small Web programs to display information from your internal systems or the Internet. For instance, a Web part might show stock quotes or a list of documents from you document management system. There are a number of Web parts that are available from Microsoft's Web site. However, most Web parts that access you internal systems such as matter management and document management must be custom developed or configured. This is the case with most portal products. The Portal Server also has increased search capabilities to search content outside of the Portal Server.

While Team Services might be used as a product to get a collaboration site up quickly, Portal Server lends itself to a bit more planning because of its application integration capabilities. Portal Server can therefore be viewed as more of an intranet starter kit. While you may create Team Services sites based on your project needs and then remove them when you are done, your SharePoint Portal site is probably going to last longer.

With Portal Server, you may want to build a “client page” that presents lawyers with such things as current news about a particular client, hot matters, documents, etc. This type of page may involve integration with several systems including matter management, document management, time and billing, financial systems ' basically any system that contains information about a client.

If you are currently thinking about creating or upgrading your intranet, you may want to consider SharePoint Portal Server. The Portal Server will give you a good starting place for intranet development. Not only does the Portal Server come with a built in infrastructure that you can modify, Microsoft also has some templates you can download from their Web site.

One benefit of portals is the ability to create an infrastructure and then let users add and configure the content independently of technical staff. This makes design of your portal a little bit easier than a normal intranet. For example, you can create portal pages for various practice groups and then let the practice leaders configure the site the way they want it. Of course you can also help each practice group integrate key applications into their portal pages. Another useful SharePoint feature is approval routing. This feature allows your organization to set up approval rules based on the publication of a document. This might be a useful feature for approval of such things as vacation time, bills, or CLE classes.

In essence what you are getting with Portal Server is a relatively inexpensive framework to achieve a good deal of your intranet and collaboration needs.

The Future of SharePoint

As you might expect, version 2 of SharePoint Portal Server is on the way. It is due out in the middle of 2003. Of course, the new version of Portal Server will have a whole host of new features. The new features will make SharePoint an even more compelling portal choice. You can visit Microsoft's Web site for some of the details.

However, what has really caught my attention is the new version of Team Services – renamed to Microsoft SharePoint Services. Services will be an add-in to Microsoft Server 2003 operating system. This will provide a very powerful to for your organization without a great deal of overhead. Services allows users to check-in/check-out documents, version documents and create folders. Other improvements in security and collaboration make this an even better tool.

In the end analysis, Microsoft SharePoint Portal and Team Services are not the most robust or best solution for every law firm or law department. However, the power these tools provide at a relatively low cost cannot be ignored. The improvements in the near future strengthen Microsoft's position. A portal in every law firm or law department? We might not be too far away.

I am sure that everyone knows the name Microsoft. I am guessing that many of you, however, are not familiar with Microsoft's portal product “SharePoint.” SharePoint presents an interesting opportunity for two reasons. First, it is a Microsoft product and chances are that your IT infrastructure and policies embrace Microsoft technology. Second, SharePoint is a relatively inexpensive portal solution. Okay, I know what you are thinking, another article about legal portals and how they will reduce your costs to nothing and increase your revenue by 2000%. I hope to provide something different here. The purpose of this article is to share my experiences working with SharePoint and provide some insight in how it can be used strategically in your law firm or law department.

Portals

First off, we must define what we mean by “portal.” For the purposes of this article, a portal will mean a Web-based tool with these characteristics:

• ability for user customization;
• ability for application integration through Web programs (often called “portlets,” “gadgets” or “Web parts”); and
• built-in basic collaboration capabilities such as document management, contact management, discussion groups, etc.

I am sure you can find different definitions of portals, but I believe that these represent the majority of “true” portals. Please note that portals will not replace traditional matter management or document management systems. They build upon these systems.

The perceived return on investments for portals stems from its collaboration and knowledge management benefits. Portals allow users both inside and outside of an organization to share information and access various sources of information. These information sources can be document management, e-billing, matter management or any number of systems. Rather than photocopying, faxing and emailing information, users can upload, download and post files and information. Portals can also display or allow users to access and manipulate project relevant information.

The key is to bring all the documents and information about a project (or matter) to one screen.

We are currently living in an age of information overload. A major benefit of portals is that it provides access to information based on specific criteria that is set by the individual user or administrator. Rather than e-mailing specific documents to team members or directing them to search for a particular document on the document management system, the portal provides direct access to the file. The portal is therefore context specific ' a “litigation portal” or “Janes v. Smith portal” or “new office furniture portal.” The context is dictated by your needs and the portal can be as transient as necessary to complete your goals.

At this year's Legal Tech Conference in New York, Microsoft showcased its portal offering ' SharePoint. That fact indicates that Microsoft is very interested in moving into the legal portal market. In fact, on the SharePoint Web site you can download a template of a SharePoint portal for law departments.

There are currently two flavors of SharePoint – SharePoint Team Services (Team Services) and SharePoint Portal Server (Portal Server). I will discuss each in turn. I will not bore you with all of their features, but give you an idea of some of the features I found useful or lacking.

SharePoint Team Services

Microsoft intends this product to be used by small project groups. I found that this product was extremely easy to install. In fact, I was able to install it on my notebook computer running Windows 2000 Professional. If you don't have SQL Server on your computer, the install program will put MSDE on your machine for a database engine. The only other product you may want to install is Microsoft FrontPage to allow you to make certain modifications to your Team Services site.

I have heard Team Services described as an “intranet on steroids.” It does not share all the characteristics of “traditional” portals, especially its lack of application integration. It does, however, provide a relatively inexpensive project collaboration tool. It has document management capabilities that allow team members to upload and download documents, but without versioning and check-in, check-out functionality. It allows users to create discussion groups, add simple contact information and add events and announcements. In short, it provides the essentials for small team collaboration on a project.

I have set up a Team Services site to manage client engagements and it sure beats emailing hundreds of documents back and forth. Team Services allows users to customize their view of information, and inform people of project events. One feature that I particularly liked was the ability to download an event right to my Outlook calendar. For lawyers, especially those working with mixed teams of inside and outside counsel, I think that Team Services could play a role if the team needed to get a collaboration tool up quickly and needed only rudimentary document management capabilities. I also like the fact that anyone can add content, depending on privileges established by the site administrator.

One capability that is missing in both Team Services and Portal Server is the ability to create sub-folders in document libraries. For those of us who are used to organizing information in hierarchical folders, this is a drawback. The end result is creating a large number of folders to organize information.

The look and feel of Team Services is very easy to modify using Microsoft FrontPage. In fact I was able to connect to my server over the Internet and make site modifications including replacing logos, links, etc. This is in addition to the modifications a user can make already on the Team Services Web site.

If you need to quickly set up a collaboration tool with team members that are not part of your company or firm, Team Services might be a good solution for you. It doesn't have all features of an “industrial strength” portal, or the elements of matter management or document management systems, but it does offer some key collaborative tools that should satisfy many small project needs. Of course, you must make certain that Team Services is compatible with your IT standards and policies. Team Services is not for everyone. You may already have a collaboration tool that works for your organization, or you may have more robust needs.

SharePoint Portal Server

Microsoft's enterprise-wide portal solution is SharePoint Portal Server. The Portal Server is a little more difficult to install. It requires Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server database to be installed on the host machine. Unlike Team Services, it requires a fairly sophisticated technical person to make the SharePoint Portal available over the Internet. For some reason, Microsoft didn't make the Portal Server out-of-the box Internet ready.

The Portal Server provides all of the functionality of Team Services with a few additions. The Portal Server allows for the use of “Web parts” which are small Web programs to display information from your internal systems or the Internet. For instance, a Web part might show stock quotes or a list of documents from you document management system. There are a number of Web parts that are available from Microsoft's Web site. However, most Web parts that access you internal systems such as matter management and document management must be custom developed or configured. This is the case with most portal products. The Portal Server also has increased search capabilities to search content outside of the Portal Server.

While Team Services might be used as a product to get a collaboration site up quickly, Portal Server lends itself to a bit more planning because of its application integration capabilities. Portal Server can therefore be viewed as more of an intranet starter kit. While you may create Team Services sites based on your project needs and then remove them when you are done, your SharePoint Portal site is probably going to last longer.

With Portal Server, you may want to build a “client page” that presents lawyers with such things as current news about a particular client, hot matters, documents, etc. This type of page may involve integration with several systems including matter management, document management, time and billing, financial systems ' basically any system that contains information about a client.

If you are currently thinking about creating or upgrading your intranet, you may want to consider SharePoint Portal Server. The Portal Server will give you a good starting place for intranet development. Not only does the Portal Server come with a built in infrastructure that you can modify, Microsoft also has some templates you can download from their Web site.

One benefit of portals is the ability to create an infrastructure and then let users add and configure the content independently of technical staff. This makes design of your portal a little bit easier than a normal intranet. For example, you can create portal pages for various practice groups and then let the practice leaders configure the site the way they want it. Of course you can also help each practice group integrate key applications into their portal pages. Another useful SharePoint feature is approval routing. This feature allows your organization to set up approval rules based on the publication of a document. This might be a useful feature for approval of such things as vacation time, bills, or CLE classes.

In essence what you are getting with Portal Server is a relatively inexpensive framework to achieve a good deal of your intranet and collaboration needs.

The Future of SharePoint

As you might expect, version 2 of SharePoint Portal Server is on the way. It is due out in the middle of 2003. Of course, the new version of Portal Server will have a whole host of new features. The new features will make SharePoint an even more compelling portal choice. You can visit Microsoft's Web site for some of the details.

However, what has really caught my attention is the new version of Team Services – renamed to Microsoft SharePoint Services. Services will be an add-in to Microsoft Server 2003 operating system. This will provide a very powerful to for your organization without a great deal of overhead. Services allows users to check-in/check-out documents, version documents and create folders. Other improvements in security and collaboration make this an even better tool.

In the end analysis, Microsoft SharePoint Portal and Team Services are not the most robust or best solution for every law firm or law department. However, the power these tools provide at a relatively low cost cannot be ignored. The improvements in the near future strengthen Microsoft's position. A portal in every law firm or law department? We might not be too far away.