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Table of Contents

• What is Legal Document Management Software?
• The benefits of Legal Document Management Software
• Typical features of Legal Document Management Software
• The cost of Legal Document Management Software
• Considerations when purchasing Legal Document Management Software
• Relevant Legal Document Management Software trends

What is Legal Document Management Software?

Legal document management software is a software tool that allows legal professionals to organize, store, and access digitized legal documents. Its scanning, imaging, and merging capabilities increase productivity by making documents easier to search, find, and share. It improves document security and confidentiality by letting companies set controls to prevent unauthorized access. 

Some legal document management software tools also offer transcription management, a feature that allows legal professionals to review, annotate, and share transcripts using a single collaborative platform.

The benefits of Legal Document Management Software

Legal document management software offers various benefits to lawyers, paralegals, and other law professionals. Some of the most notable ones include: 

• Lower liability and risk: Legal document management software helps protect critical data and confidential information from thefts or unauthorized access. Security features such as access permissions and version control help law professionals manage who can access, read, edit, share, or delete the documents.
• Enhanced productivity: Law professionals are more productive when they spend less time manually tracking down the files and information they need. The tool’s document storage feature, with indexing and full text search capabilities, ensures legal documents are easily accessible. It also makes it simple to track document versions, find filings, and build a comprehensive file history for future references.
• Secure file sharing: Using legal document management software to share files with clients, colleagues, and third parties is a secure alternative to sending documents by email. It gives legal professionals full control over who has access to documents. It also lets them track versions and the complete document history. 
• Remote access: Legal document management software allows professionals to access documents remotely and work on them from anywhere. It removes the risk of leaving an important document back at the office because everything is stored digitally at a centralized location. Documents can be accessed via a laptop, smartphone, tablet, or any other authorized device.

Typical features of Legal Document Management Software

Here are some common features of legal document management software:

• Document capture and storage: Scan paper documents and convert them into digital files. Collect, upload, and store all case-related and client-specific documents at a secure, centralized location.
• Full text search: Look through the contents of an entire document—not just certain sections, titles, or authors. Search for specific text strings, and filter results to find documents quickly.
• Access controls: Define levels of access authorization for specific files and folders. Set permissions based on whether a user should be allowed to access, edit, or share files and documents.
• Archiving and retention: Move and separately store documents not actively in use. This functionality provides comprehensive storage, classification, and retrieval of archived information.
• Version control: Save, restore, and view multiple versions of the same document. Stay on top of document changes by tracking the full version history.
• Optical character recognition (OCR): Convert typed, handwritten, or printed documents into machine-encoded text. This makes it easy to read, search, and edit handwritten and other non-digitized documents.
• Collaboration tools: Work collectively on a document with another individual or a group of individuals. Communicate and share information within the system in real time.

The cost of Legal Document Management Software

Most products in the market are priced on a per user, per month basis. Pricing can be divided into three pricing tiers based on the starting prices: 

Price ranges*:

• $11 - $34
• $34 - $58
• $58+

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering found on vendor websites on Oct. 12, 2020. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.

Considerations when purchasing Legal Document Management Software

Here are some considerations to keep in mind when selecting a legal document management tool:

• Mobile accessibility: Mobility gives law professionals the flexibility to work on the go. Look for a software solution that offers a native mobile app or accessibility on mobile browsers. This capability will help you access data, electronically sign documents, and submit forms from anywhere and at any time.
• Compliance and security requirements: Legal information is subject to strict regulatory oversight, so security should be a key consideration for legal document management systems. Many solutions include a centralized document storage portal that offers access controls, ensuring documents are protected from unauthorized third parties and hacking or phishing attempts. 
• System integration needs: Many legal document management platforms integrate well with case management and law practice management software tools. Integration helps save time and money as well as reduces the potential for clerical errors. Ensure the legal document management solution you’ve selected integrates well with your existing applications for billing, accounting, scheduling, and more.

Relevant legal document management software trends

Optical character recognition (OCR) maximizes the value of scanned documents. OCR technology converts document images into actual, searchable text. It produces a computer-readable text file from a scanned image of a printed or handwritten page. Without OCR capabilities, the only way to digitize paper documents is to manually retype the contents or risk losing important context when searching for information. The retyping process is time-consuming and prone to inaccuracy and typing errors. Searchability is critical for legal documents, and OCR makes it easy to find any word or phrase in a file.