Expert Witness Areas

Legal extranets can serve as good areas for attorneys and expert witnesses to share information. There is no need to store documents electronically on the servers of the attorney reviewing the document, all they need to do is access the document which is stored on a server which is not managed by the attorney's law firm or company. This, potentially, may prove to be an advantageous configuration for all parties involved.

These types of systems also allow one to track the status of one or several experts (are they currently engaged with a client and if so in what way), attach files to the record about them (their CV, picture, examples of prior work, etc...) and track any other important data about each of the experts.

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.