Safely and effectively managing all the documents associated with running a law firm requires more than just storing and tagging them. Documents in a law firm have their own lifecycle that involves valuable intellectual property (IP), handoffs, collaboration, versioning, and a host of storage and access considerations.
Properly managing your document lifecycle helps you to minimize risk and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. And bringing a critical eye to each stage of this lifecycle often reveals an opportunity to either gain more efficiency or improve the quality of your work product.
Phase 1: Document Creation
Before documents are filed away in your document management system, they’re created—sometimes from scratch, but more often from a similar, previously created document containing your highly valuable IP. While this document “cloning” process is common, it’s highly error-prone and inefficient. Automating your document creation process not only saves you time and improves your document quality; it also makes it easier for you to onboard new employees, helps you better leverage your IP, and could even help you move to value-based billing.
Check out our Ultimate Guide to Legal Document Automation to learn everything there is to know about automating your document creation process.
Phase 2: Classification and Storage
The key questions in this stage of the document lifecycle are: “What is this document? And how do we classify it in order to ensure that we can easily access it later?” This is where your document management system (DMS) shines, offering a secure repository for your documents, version control, and the ability to organize and/or tag them in such a way as to ensure retrievability at a moment’s notice.
Take a look at our Comprehensive Guide to Legal Document Management Systems for a deep dive into the benefits of legal DMS, tips for choosing the right system for your firm, and guidance for optimizing your implementation.
Phase 3: Sharing and Delivery
At this phase of the document lifecycle, the document is active and is fulfilling its purpose. Your firm may distribute it internally, send it externally, or store it in your DMS. Let’s look deeper into sharing your document internally and externally.
Internal workflow. Once someone creates a document, it may go through various stages internally for further collaboration, such as an editing process, review by multiple parties or departments, or an approval process. Access control and permissions functionality are key for this stage in the life cycle. For instance, a new client contract may require input from accounting or management before you can send it to the client.
External delivery and tracking. Many firms create documents solely for internal use and never share them outside the organization. However, if someone creates a document to send to an external party, such as a client contract, they will need to send it to the appropriate party and track it to ensure it meets the objective. An e-signature solution can be useful at this stage of the life cycle.
Phase 4: Archival and Destruction
Most documents have a limited active life. Once a document has achieved its objective or a newer version or document supersedes it, the document becomes inactive. It will then need to go into secure storage for whatever time period is appropriate.
To reduce clutter and protect sensitive data, it’s important to securely archive or destroy inactive documents. Document management systems ensure you can methodically and securely archive documents.
By connecting your firm’s various tools and daily workflows with the entire document life cycle in mind, you can ensure your document-related processes are as efficient and complete as possible — saving time, avoiding redundancies, and enhancing security.
To comply with federal and state laws and regulations, read our Document Retention Policies to reduce your risk and liability.
If you're interested in learning more about a document management system for your law firm or legal department, just reach out to Affinity here or by calling 877-676-5492.
