Richard Tromans is fond of saying, “It’s a game changer when the game has changed.” NetDocuments’ new generative AI products may be the game changer.
When I was practicing law full-time, we often had discussions and dreamed about a dynamic “past efforts file.” The idea was that we should save documents that others could later use as templates for future work. We all realized how beneficial and efficient that would be. The problem, of course, was twofold. Getting people to place work in the file, in the first place, was a challenge. They had to spend nonbillable time inputting the material. And it was often only addressed once a case ended when they weren’t interesting. A second problem: figuring out how to easily access the documents in the files.
With the advent of digital and the cloud, getting the documents in the file became easier since they were often stored there already. But access to them was still an issue. How to search for them? What keywords could and should be used to find the documents? It often took more time than it was to just start from scratch. The result was a lot of unused knowledge for a lack of management.
But of course, this lack of use led to substantial inefficiencies as documents were recreated time and time again. Also, quality was impacted. Well-crafted documents by senior people in the firm couldn’t be easily accessed, so you started over. The result inevitability was poorer quality documents. And there needed to be a way to ensure that documents conformed with the firm’s best practices and were standardized. It would be great if someone outside the firm could look at a document and know it met its standards.
But there seemed to be no solution. No viable way to