Documentlifecycle

Document lifecycle management has been a mainstay of law firms since the days lawyers first put pen to paper. Document management, however, is just one piece of the puzzle.

Some things are even better together

Contents

• Information Governance

• The document and matter lifecycle

• Tikit Template Management System

• NetDocuments

• Filetrail

• Prosperoware

• Why Tikit?

Information Governance

Clients entrust their most sensitive data to law firms, be it commercial or personal data.They have an inherent belief that the firm will treat this data with integrity and will not put them at risk.

Nothing will destroy trust between a client and a firm quicker than a data leak or the firm being found in breach of regulatory requirements.

Living up to this trust is a tough ask and it’s not getting any easier. Lawyers need to create, store, locate, collaborate and archive or dispose of all documents related to a matter and ‘documents’ can now consist of electronic documents, scanned images, paper documents, emails and other types of communications.

Doing all of this efficiently, securely and within a robust information governance framework is impossible with a single vendor solution. It requires an integrated set of best of breed solutions, all working to help drive the information flow within the firm. A set of solutions that are simply ‘better together’.

Document lifecycle management

Tikit has been working with organisations to improve their document and email management for over 25 years and now leverages this deep understanding of the legal technology sector to implement and support NetDocuments all over the world.NetDocuments is used by hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide, within industries regulated by strict compliance and data security requirements, including many law firms and corporate legal departments. Firms need to become more efficient and technology enabled to build and enhance their client relationships.

It’s clear that security surrounding documents and firm’s document processes needs to be tighter than ever. All workflows need to be built to take into account strict compliance, governance and business continuity considerations.

Add to the list the ever growing need to provide a reliable and scalable platform that allows colleagues who work off site to share documents and collaborate easily and suddenly there is a lot to think about when considering document processes!

Tikit have been working with law firms for over 25 years and we have experts all over the world that are helping law firms with their document lifecycle management both locally and internationally.

Over this time we have teamed up with many providers. The reason we choose to work with these partners is because we know that they are the best at what they do and we understand that ‘one size does not fit all’.

There are many ways in which a law firm can build a document lifecycle management platform and we work with our clients to deliver and integrate the tools that best suit their firm’s objectives.

CREATE

ARCHIVE &DISPOSE

SHARE &COLLABORATE

STORE

SEARCH &RETRIEVE

INFORMATION GOVERNANCE

The document and matter lifecycleA SINGLE POINT OF DATA ENTRY

The creation of a document in a consistent and presentable form is essential in promoting the firm’s value and brand. A properly formatted document improves readability and provides the foundation for effective communication and collaboration with clients. Producing professional documents however, is often considered the #1 overhead item and as such efficiencies surrounding the document can provide firms with a distinct competitive advantage, by reducing the overall cost of service delivery.

STORE

The initial creation of a document is the first step in the cycle, however once created, the nature of firm service delivery and compliance requires:

• An efficient iterative evolution of the document (including client collaboration) on the road to final form.

• Easy and efficient access to the document for potential reuse.

• Accurate tracking including its precise location throughout its lifecycle.

To facilitate the above, the initial storage of the document is critical. The ability to rapidly store the document centrally (including paper documents) within an electronic matter file, with appropriate security and agreed protocols, is the foundation for future accessibility and compliance. Not to mention that from a security and business continuity perspective the benefits of electronic documents are clear.

SEARCH AND RETRIEVE

Creating and storing the vast amount of information of all sorts that go to make up a matter requires an effective mechanism for organisation and retrieval. Having all records, digital or physical, at your electronic fingertips means the days of your client or employees having a long wait for a document, or file, to be pulled from your archives are over. Further, powerful indexing capabilities mean that complex searches can be accomplished in a matter of seconds and the results delivered wherever the user needs them. If your teams can find document information easily it quickly leads to improved productivity and a more agile service delivery, enabling your firm to remain ahead of the rest, in an ever increasingly competitive environment.

SHARE AND COLLABORATE

Firms need to share, compare and collaborate on documents… Lots of them! With colleagues that work off-site, clients, partner firms and with outside consultants. You need to provide an environment to allow this. One that won’t compromise on security and governance and that can be deployed easily or, if required, tailored to meet the needs of your firm and your clients.

ARCHIVE AND DISPOSE

The effort associated with effective management of records, both physical and electronic has proved so great that many firms simply retain all information forever. This has implications for space and storage as well as leaving the firm at risk of contravening regulatory and outside counsel guidelines. Implementation of a formal, automated process for disposal and archiving which adheres to pre-agreed principles and protocols, makes sure your firm stays compliant while simultaneously making life simpler.

Key benefits• No need for coding. Create, maintain

and control all of your MS Office templates without code – giving you a faster deployment vs code based systems.

• Easy configuration. Design, maintain and adapt all of your MS Office templates using a simple configuration tool – greater end-user adoption, lower support burden for IT and simple to re-brand if necessary.

• Ease of use. The application utilises all current MS Office tools available. Its organised, structured template library is easy to manage, store, find and amend templates. ‘Fill in the blanks’ functionality for basic documents, reduces risk of user error and increases automation.

• Global templates. Full multi-jurisdiction and multi-language support – suitable for firms with global reach.

• Consistency. Content editor task pane –centralise document edits for 100% consistency throughout the document lifecycle.

• NetDocuments synchronisation. Create consistently branded documents for all changes to synchronise effortlessly with your NetDocuments platform.

The efficient creation of a document in a consistent and presentable form is essential in promoting the firm’s value and brand. A properly formatted document improves readability and provides the foundation for effective communication and collaboration with clients.

Tikit Template Management System (Tikit TMS) allows your users to efficiently produce consistent, branded documents across your entire firm - even when your firm is multi-sited and spans borders and continents.

The process of document creation is central to the way a law firm works. The process has to be simple, efficient and lead to consistently branded documents. Taking control of the document production process means having an effective set of curated MS Office templates. However, designing, deploying and maintaining these templates can be complex and difficult.

Traditional macro-based template management wastes time, leaves you exposed to compliance risks and provides a barrier to upgrading to the newest version of MS Office. Tikit TMS has been designed to address these challenges. The application requires no specific development skill and streamlines your templates for operational efficiency and brand consistency.

TMS

For nearly two decades, NetDocuments has delivered innovation through a world-class content services platform. But it’s not just about the content. Today’s firms and their clients need technology that is flexible, scalable, easy-to-use, and with end-to-end security and encryption. The NetDocuments single global platform allows firms to adapt and deliver the technology solutions and security their professionals need and their clients demand.

THE NETDOCUMENTS SECURE CONTENT SERVICES INCLUDE:

• Platform-wide security audits, attestations and compliance certifications including GDPR; ISO 27001, 27017, 27018; SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 2+; HIPAA; FINRA/SEC; FIPS 140-2.

• Dual-custody entropic cryptography for protection against self, subpoenas, ransomware and nation state.

• Customer-owned and managed encryption keys at the document and email level.

• Geo-aware storage with ndFlexStore™ technology enabling cloud, Azure or local data storage.

• Built-in data loss prevention.

• Blockchain technology for document certification, secure delivery and digital identity management.

• Two-factor authentication for internal and external people.

• Dedicated security and compliance department to aid customer firms in client and security audits.

SEARCH AND RETRIEVE

Gain complete control over data privacy and regulatory compliance with no impact to productivity or performance NetDocuments provides data protection and military-grade encryption to it’s customers and their clients.

Secure and robust document management is central to the lifecycle of a document. If clients are going to trust you with their data, you need a document solution that you can trust. NetDocuments is the world leader in cloud-based document management and provides a platform that is Safe, Ready and Proven.

THE NETDOCUMENTS PLATFORM DELIVERS POWERFUL PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS ACROSS A VARIETY OF PRODUCTS AND INTERFACES, INCLUDING:

• ndSync™ for file and device synchronisation for Windows or Mac.

• NDOffice™ Microsoft application integration and the Office 365 built-in integration for Word Online and Word iOS/Android apps.

• ndMail™ for intelligent and predictive filing directly within Outlook.

• ndThread™ for real-time matter-based messaging and collaboration.

• Ability to annotate and comment within document viewing technology accessible from within MS Outlook or the web interface.

• NetDocuments analytics and AI provides modern machine learning services, with pre-trained models such as predictive filing of emails across the global behaviour of users across the firm with increased accuracy.

• A myriad of third-party applications offering a cloud-to-cloud experience and common UI within integrated desktop apps providing a common user experience across applications.

• NetDocuments provides full transparency and trust with it’s global service status page providing realtime system-wide performance metrics.

• Platform updates are released on a regular basis.

• Every second of the day, 24 x 7, thousands of transactions take place. Always on, always available.

READY

Markets never sleep, customers never stop, clients want more. NetDocuments supports evolving work styles, provides mobile access, and simplifies team collaboration.

The faster a person can connect and get to work, the more efficient and effective they will be servicing their clients. NetDocuments enables people to work how they want, where they want, and across any device.

PROVEN

NetDocuments has delivered billions of files to thousands of global customers every day for nearly 20 years. NetDocuments has earned the trust and respect of more than 2,500 global firms, Fortune 1000 corporations, and small and medium sized businesses by consistently delivering the performance, security, and productivity tools expected in today’s fast-paced economy.

All customers leverage the same powerful technology, benefiting from the same security, encryption and compliance, and reaping the benefits of a world-class enterprise content services platform.

Filetrail provides a framework within which information governance policies can be defined and automated. It automates your retention policies, workflow reviews, and disposition for all files to ensure compliance. Including all files, which means physical records too, in this process significantly reduces risk and ensures compliance with both regulation and Outside Counsel Guidelines.

A major component of an Information Governance strategy is the management of all matter related documents through their lifecycle and ensuring that their ultimate disposition is respected. This is largely driven by external pressures as clients in highly regulated sectors have been rapidly advancing their risk mitigation initiatives. As a result, they’ve been issuing increasingly detailed Information Governance (IG) protocols. This onslaught of new IG requirements is just now reaching law firms. Within firms themselves there is also an increasing recognition of the cost of record storage. Firms are, therefore, being forced to rapidly evolve their IG capabilities to accommodate the distinct guidelines of individual clients, reduce storage costs, and mitigate litigation risk by eliminating old documents and records.

Carrying out such processes manually is time-consuming and labour intensive, factors that have meant that most firms never remove electronic documents or destroy physical records. With FileTrail’s Governance Policy Suite (GPS) software the process of running a manual search for matters that are ready for disposition, sending a memo to the responsible parties, waiting for sign off, and then starting the destruction process when those approvals finally surface can be effectively automated.

FILETRAIL GPS ENSURES DOCUMENTS NEVER SLIP THROUGH THE CRACKS

• Automatically classify and apply retention policies to documents and records.

• Manage reviews and monitor progress in real-time on an actionable dashboard.

• Automate disposition, destruction and other process with built-in workflows.

• Forecast dispositions to reveal the value of retention in future monetary savings.

• Respond to client audits quickly, documenting compliance with advanced audit reporting.

PASS CLIENT AUDITS

• Automating compliance internally is great, but it means nothing if you’re unable to respond to client audits quickly. With FileTrail GPS’s audit trails and reports, you have on-demand access to all activity, security, and compliance details in one place.

• During the initial classification of a document or the review process, GPS captures all activity and records it in an audit file.

• If a policy changes, the tool can provide a detailed audit trail, so that you can generate a report to prove records were promptly destroyed according to policy.

Prosperoware solves the challenge of switching your firm from an ‘open access’ model to a ‘need to know’ model. Such switches while being in increasing demand by clients and regulators, can place a heavy burden on IT, Risk, and the lawyers themselves. Prosperoware allows matter teams to access the information they need, when they need it, without the necessity for intervention by IT and with the access fully audited.

PROSPEROWARE CAM BENEFITS.

• Ability to apply different levels of access to workspaces and matter content for the firm, department, specialty group, client, or matter team.

• Ability to grant or request access to matters and documents for users and service desk.

• Different levels of approval for access requests.

• Ability to distribute administration of groups such as department or specialty to designated end-users.

• Prevents ethical wall violations when granting access.

• Leverages groups to avoid refiling.

• Support for access expiration.

• Approval via email reply.

• Ability to enable pessimistic matter. Prosperware CAM makes the general application of pessimistic matter security possible with minimal impact to the firm thus minimising the firm’s exposure to an internal data breach.

A robust Information Governance strategy has reduce the risk to law firms of managing large quantities of non-public data belonging to multiple clients. Firms need to track and report on the data they manage, secure it appropriately and enable selective, controlled access to it. The challenge has always been the administrative overhead associated with such controls and the difficulty of flexibly managing it. Ethical wall or information barriers are traditionally centrally controlled through the risk process and access is determined by the risk team.

While appropriate in some situations an ethical wall solution is not flexible enough to make a solution for everyday use on all documents within the firm. Prosperoware CAM allows ‘need-to-know’ security to be applied as a default and for the lawyer who ‘owns’ or is responsible for a matter to permit additional access as required.

As matter content is stored across multiple systems, managing access becomes more complex; best practice dictates that end users have the ability to request and grant access to matters or individual documents as appropriate. Service desks should be able to support the process.

Why Tikit?

With 25 years’ experience in legal document management, we’ve seen it all. We know that each of these components is a powerful solution in its own right and each has a role to fill to support a firm’s document lifecycle and Information Governance strategy. They do not all have to be implemented at the same time but with all of them working together they are, simply, better together.

TIKIT ARE A NETDOCUMENTS GLOBAL PLATINUM PARTNER.

• We have been accredited by NetDocuments in the delivery, training and support of their platform.

• And have experience of delivering and supporting many of the market leading (past and present) document management solutions.

• We are uniquely placed to advise on your document strategy and deliver the implementation, regardless of whether you are considering a new document solution, or replacing your current platform.

OUR TEAM HAS ALL OF THE RELEVANT SKILLS TO ENSURE THAT YOUR IMPLEMENTATION IS A SUCCESS:

• Consultancy. Our consultants understand the full document lifecycle and can implement An integrated solution at either initial implementation, or as your document lifecycle strategy develops.

• Project management. all projects are managed by our highly experienced PRINCE 2 qualified team, working within a formal Project Management Office environment.

• Training. Our training team is NetDocuments certified and can deliver tailored onsite, remote or online training programmes to increase usage and adoption in a way that suits your business.

• Support. Our support team is ISO accredited and available 24 / 7 / 365. We continually monitor client satisfaction and we are proud to say that we achieved a Net Promotor Score of 89.7% last year.

Registered in England 2885516. Registered office 81 Newgate Street, London, EC1A 7AJ

Copyright © Tikit 2020

To find out more, talk to a member of the Tikit team today.

+44 (0)20 7400 3737 (Europe) +1 888 878 4548 (North America)

hello@tikit.com | www.tikit.com | @TikitGroup

March 2020 / 1