The Legal Desktop: Using Microsoft Technologies To Empower Law Firms tackles the question of how the Microsoft Office system with SharePoint Server 2007 addresses legal-specific document and records management requirements. The 2007 Microsoft Office system is a platform solution that can help law firms boost productivity, improve communication and collaboration, and increase security and compliance. These improvements, in turn, can help to achieve increased profitability, faster client response times, reduced risk, and other strategic goals. The range of capabilities and features in the 2007 Office system that deliver business value and functionality for law firms is immense. Whether law firms are looking to replace, enhance, or add to existing solutions, the 2007 Office system can provide cost-effective and cost-sensitive solutions that improve user acceptance, reduce the need for training, and reduce the burden on the IT department, while at the same time, allowing users to be better connected to people and information inside and outside the firm. A primary goal of this white paper is therefore to provide a baseline understanding of and deeper insight into those functional capabilities and use-case scenarios most likely to help law firms realize the huge business potential inherent within the Office system. This white paper discusses features and extensibility opportunities available within the 2007 Office system to provide a powerful and flexible portal, search, content management, and content-sharing solutions, to address the advisory, client representation, ethics, and compliance requirements of law firms. The white paper discusses these features and opportunities in the context of the functional and usage requirements of law firms. To this end, much of the information is presented from the perspective of the typical tasks that legal professionals perform on a daily basis, such as searching for relevant content, creating and re-using documents, profiling documents and e-mail with metadata, sending to and retrieving documents and e-mails from records, and managing access to content.
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