When legal technologies began to hit the market in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, larger firms traditionally had
enterprise-level financial tools for managing their back-office functions like conflicts, matter intake, time entry,
expenses, and billing. But smaller firms had separate time entry and bookkeeping systems, with conflicts and
matter intake being largely manual.
Small firms had a need for more advanced tools that were not overly burdensome or too expensive, and
practice management software arrived to fill the gaps. PM solutions also added much needed functionality,
such as matter intake, calendaring, contact management, and electronic billing and payment processing.
Meanwhile, larger firms added DMS capabilities to their tech stack in order to have:
● A single system of record
● Version control and management
● Ethical wall capabilities
● Email storage and attachment management
● Robust search tools
● OCR of scanned files
● Secure file sharing
● Granular security controls
In the last several years, legal DMS platforms have added even more functionality for managing the entire legal
document lifecycle — tools like file-sharing portals, electronic signature, task management, closing/witness
binders and other set building, electronic court filing, and document and workflow automation. Anything you
do that touches documents is supported by the modern DMS