How Small Law Firms can be Productive for less using SaaS and Knowledge Management

Law.com’s Legal Technology blog featured an excellent piece by Bryan Redding of Cavo Legal (and fellow Big Ten alumni).  Mr. Redding sets out some of the challenges faced by small firms:

There are more than 850,000 lawyers in the U.S. currently practicing as solo practitioners or with small firms (less than 20 attorneys). This demographic is faced with challenges that firms of all sizes face, albeit on a more pronounced scale: smaller budgets, fewer support staff and the need to spend more time fulfilling clients’ needs on a personal, hands-on basis — all while providing increased value at lower costs in this tough economy.

Great stats in there.  So how to handle problems such as these?

One secure, cost-effective method of delivery for knowledge management is the SaaS model. It used to be that only large enterprises could leverage the rewards of Saas. But according to a new report by IDG, 97 percent of companies are now implementing SaaS for a variety of reasons, from the cost savings associated with the elimination of additional software licenses to the development of a green IT strategy. With SaaS, a service provider licenses applications on-demand instead of storing the application on its in-house server. SaaS has many benefits, such as reducing administrative overhead and rapid deployment. By reducing the amount of hardware you run in-house, SaaS significantly lowers the amount of power you consume. Probably the best benefit for small firms with the SaaS delivery model is that there is no need for additional IT staff to use these services.

You may not need a full fledged KM solution to run your practice, however.  Have you checked out how Rocket Matter uses tags combined with document storage?

Tags, a common tool in Web 2.0 applications, are keywords you can use to describe a file.  So if you upload a Motion to Dismiss into one of your Rocket Matter matters, you can tag it as such.  Same for pleadings, intake forms, etc.

Rocket Matter tags are available in our Global Intelligent Search.  So if you don’t want to re-invent the wheel, and use a document you’ve already drafted as a template, you can just type in “Motion to Dismiss” at the top of any page and pull up all of such documents to use as a basis for your next one.