What is legal document management software?

When you work in a law office or run a business, legal documents are a fact of life. From wills to court summons to client communications, paperwork is a big part of the job in the legal industry and beyond. Keeping everything organised is a challenge, but legal document management software can go a long way to making the task easier to handle.

Whether you’re a solicitor or work outside the legal sector, legal document management is vital for many reasons. Legal forms are a fact of life, and handling them properly will help your business remain secure, compliant and straightforward to administer.

This article explains what company leaders in and out of the legal industry need to know about legal document management software to make things easier to handle.

Find out the following facts about legal document management systems:

• The role they fulfill
• The features they include
• The benefits of using legal document management software

What is legal document management?

Legal document management is a process by which firms or individuals handle the storage, management and communication of legal papers. This is not just limited to legal offices or solicitors firms; it is an essential consideration for all businesses that process legal documents.

Good business practices for legal document management systems are crucial for managing important legal files. These might include contracts, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and other typical forms needed for a company's legal compliance. 

Legal document management software is designed to help simplify these tasks. These programs offer businesses digital tools to create, organise, edit, securely share files, and create workflows for overseeing essential paperwork.

Legal document management software common features 

Now that we’ve answered the question of what is legal document management software let’s consider what it does. These programs boast many useful functionalities to help small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) get on top of their paperwork filing, archiving, and access. 

These tools commonly include databases that allow users to store, access and edit files. This permits managers and employees to find and work with the precise documents they need whilst keeping everything up to date across the company. These tools are also often designed so documents can be scanned, generated as PDFs and then indexed within the built-in database. 

However, there’s quite a lot more these systems can do. Many legal document management systems boast useful functions for lawyers and legal professionals, such as transcription management or contract management, in addition to collaboration tools.

Lastly, document management systems are commonly set up to allow further software integration. This might be to link to a dedicated analytics platform, billing software, or document generation software.

What tasks are legal document management systems used for?

Legal document management systems have many uses for SMEs. First and foremost, they can help with the creation and storage of legal forms that your company has created. 

Additionally, they can prove useful for other tasks such as internal collaboration, organising and synchronising documents across a business, analytics and monitoring compliance. This can prove invaluable for small-to-medium law businesses in their day-to-day operations or small businesses generally aiming to keep on top of their documentation and legal compliance. 

What is the difference between document management solutions and document storage?

Document management and document storage are two key enterprise administration approaches that can address legal document management in a company. However, there are some subtle differences between these two techniques.

Document storage normally refers to the archiving of paperwork. In the case of digital files, standalone document storage platforms such as Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox. However, digital cloud storage systems will usually be limited to providing a secure and accessible location where documents can be kept. 

Document management systems, on the other hand, assist businesses in maintaining dynamic documents, handling their workflows and many other tasks. In many cases, software designed for document management will also assist with digital storage and archiving tasks. However, they will also do much more to help SMEs prioritise important files, improve searchability and create and edit documents.

Can legal document management help with legal case manager software?

Legal document management systems are similar to the legal case manager software used by law firms. However, the two aren’t quite the same.

As we’ve already explored, legal document management software focuses primarily on the day-to-day organisation of legal forms used within a business. This helps company leaders and employees manage essential documents and keep track of their filing. 

Alternatively, legal case manager software will often do legal document management and much more. They are optimised instead for those running businesses in the legal sector where case files need effective organisation. 

Despite these differences, legal document management tools can still support legal case management. Furthermore, case manager systems can also allow a dedicated legal document management system to be added as a third-party integration if they don’t have such a system already built in.

Benefits of legal document management systems for UK SMEs

Legal document management software in the UK offer many benefits to British SMEs. Below, we’ve highlighted a few of the most important advantages of using software for legal document management:

• Saving time
• Improving accuracy 
• Safe and secure document storage
• Easy file sharing across a business
• Ensuring legal compliance

Taking care of legal paperwork can be a time-consuming and repetitive task for company leaders or managers. Yet it is a vitally important function of a business in any sector and one that can be made much simpler with the right tools.