Peter von Elling :: pvonelling@sagesol.com
As Law Firms Go Paperless, Two Monitors Are Better than One
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The digitization of documents in law firms is a wonderful development: off-site storage is now the server room; information flows freely through your organization; and employees have more information at their fingertips. So why are your attorneys and staff still printing so much paper? In most cases, the paper just sits on someone’s desk for reference while they input data or draft another document. These people are not Luddites or seeking to single-handedly destroy the Brazilian rainforest, but when digitization solved the paper problem, it created another: how to view a document while working on another application on a computer monitor.
The answer is so obvious it is easily overlooked. For those in data-entry or research intensive positions, give them a second monitor. Given the rapidly falling prices of flat panel monitors, providing certain practice support staff and maybe some attorneys with two medium-sized monitors that act like one is cheaper and more productive than the current paper-printing madness or providing a single, larger monitor. Dual monitor solutions can have a tremendous, immediate impact on the productivity and efficacy of your litigation support, docketing, and accounting staff.
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Building a Web Content Management System with Spare Parts
Matt Daniel :: mdaniel@sagesol.com
Using Microsoft Access Saves Time, Money, and Creates a Better User Experience
When Collier Shannon Scott LLP needed a console to administer their redesigned web site, they turned to SAGE to data-enable it and create a custom web content management system (CMS). In doing so, we and the client took a unique approach. Building a custom CMS system from scratch based on web technologies (HTML, ASP.NET, Coldfusion, PHP, etc), is an expensive proposition. David Carns, IT Director at Collier Shannon Scott, thought there might be some way to take advantage of the spare licenses for Microsoft Access the law firm had available. SAGE has extensive experience using MS Access to administer a variety of applications. Using Access, we provided Collier Shannon Scott with a user-friendly CMS system tailored to their specific needs—allowing them to easily manage their web site—at a significant cost savings and dramatically shortened development time.
For Collier Shannon Scott, this approach had many advantages. The CMS we developed is tailored not only to their particular web content, but also to the many relationships among the content. For instance, an article links to the author, related firm attorneys, and the associated practice area. Managing such relationships using an out-of-the-box CMS is extremely difficult. By using MS Access, however, we could develop a custom CMS cheaper and quicker than using web-based technologies. We designed an intuitive and engaging interface to the CMS specifically for the firm’s web site, which allowed the firm to distribute administrative duties such as updating web content to many different staff members with the bare minimum of training. "SAGE's technical expertise in web programming was a huge relief,” said David Carns, IT Director for Collier Shannon Scott. “They understood our particular needs and had us up and running quickly."
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