As the benefits of wireless devices are increasingly becoming internalized within the law firms, their popularity with attorneys and support staff is soaring. Industry experts have estimated that the number of large law firms providing PDAs to attorneys has expanded to more than 50 percent by the end of 2001. Some of these benefits are:

• Communication with colleagues and clients irrespective of location and time ("anytime anywhere") thus improving response time and client satisfaction
• Access to documents, research and client data at all times improving the quality of work and facilitating cross-selling of additional service
• Improved capture of time and billing data at the time of delivery of services

Attorneys and legal support staff can be as productive on the road as they are in the office. No matter where they are - in an airport lobby, a restaurant, a courthouse conference room or a cab - if they can have direct access to all the information they need to keep on working for their clients, they can increase their productivity and billing significantly.

A vast majority of legal information is stored as electronic documents: case files, client correspondence, legal documents, contracts, and reports. Access to the latest documents and files, in order to create the most compelling and complete submission, is critical for the fast growing mobile legal workforce.

Currently there is a good understanding about the capabilities of hand-held devices, operating systems and wireless network services within the IT community (because of the massive education from device and network vendors). However, there is a general lack of education regarding the options available for accessing enterprise data, documents (including e-mail attachments) and applications from the mobile devices.

Many attorneys are initially delighted when a wireless handheld with e-mail service is made available. However, their frustration builds quickly when they find themselves unable to access the e-mail attachments or case related documents and templates from the online repository in the office. Given that over 40% of client related e-mails have some sort of attachments, this limitation can severely impact the usefulness of the wireless devices.

In addition to the need for applications allowing access to the attachments, documents and data from (memory and display) constrained devices, there is also the technology challenge (at least for the next few years) of how to efficiently connect the mobile worker over low-bandwidth dial-up and wireless networks to their corporate environment.

Fortunately, there now exists a class of add-on software that acts as document and file gateways and facilitates the access to e-mail attachments and enterprise files from the wireless devices, observing the limitations of the devices and the wireless network (in terms of bandwidth and cost). These software products typically are installed as server software with e-mail addresses to which the attachments are re-directed by the users. The server software then converts the attachment document into text format and embeds it in an e-mail message that is sent back to the user. The user is then able to read the e-mail text and act upon the original e-mail. The products then add a number of features such as:

• Redirecting the attachment to a fax machine or printer selected by the user or e-mailing it to another e-mail address (perhaps the client)
• Extracting selected parts of the files (e.g., selected pages, slides or worksheets) and sending those to the device, fax or printer with or without conversion to text
• Searching and summarizing lengthy documents (such as depositions) by keyword or concept and displaying only parts meeting given criteria

These products differ in their support of features, e-mail software (Exchange, Lotus, Groupwise and/or Internet POP), devices, networks, file types, media types, security etc. Additionally, some of the products work only for e-mail attachments while others can access files and documents within the enterprise (subject to user's security clearance) as well as web URLs. Another difference lies in the architecture of the products in terms of extensibility for supporting custom needs or ability to integrate with business applications such as case/practice management or time and billing.

IT managers of law firms planning the implementation of wireless technologies must weigh the above parameters and come up with decisions around the devices, network services, attachment viewers, wireless application integration architecture, user training, etc. so that the initial deployments incorporate enough functionality beyond the PIM applications (calendar/contact) and basic e-mail to ensure user satisfaction and demonstrable productivity gains. Limited external consulting can be a worthwhile investment in the long term to get the most out of the wireless investment and to future-proof the IT architecture. 

About our author...

RV Rao is a Business Development Director at Lexington, MA based InfoClarus (www.infoclarus.com). InfoClarus is a solutions and services company focused on mobility and business process outsourcing (BPO). They offer technology solutions, projects, hosting and outsourced applications and business process solutions. RV can be reached at rvrao@infoclarus.com.