Business Issues Related To Legal Extranets

Here are a few quick items to consider if you are a law firm and considering putting up a legal extranet system for your clients and if you, for some reason, would not want to contract with the Xerdict Group for your extranet needs ! :)

• Have you considered the need for business insurance.
• Do you have a standard contact you wish to have clients enter into so that issues such as software warranties, data security, indemnification, etc.. are clearly defined.
• Is your legal extranet system name trademarked and source code copyrighted?
• Do you have a privacy policy to govern the data which will be stored on your system?
• Do you have a service level agreement with your clients?
• Do you feel confident that you have the appropriate support structure in place with respect to client support, technical support, customer service.
• Do you have appropriate change management system in place to help you govern the various changes in the various different implementations you will ultimately be delivering to your clients.
• Do you have a structure and technology in place which will allow you to do sales demonstrations and other pre-sales work?
• Do you have a sense of how (or if) you will be recapturing the costs of the system (billing your clients).
• Do you have a methodology for storing and managing your application source code?
• Do you have appropriate backup mechanisms and failover procedures and processes put into place?

These are all items to consider, perhaps some are not applicable to you but I would expect most should be application for most firms.