FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Created by lawyers for lawyers
THE SYSTEM THAT DOES ALL THE WORK FOR YOU
Does MetaJure Smart DMS store my documents off-site?
No. MetaJure is installed on a secure server that is owned by your law firm or corporate legal department.
How does MetaJure Smart DMS differ from other offerings?
MetaJure is unique in the marketplace in several respects. First, MetaJure automatically collects and indexes your entire store of documents without the time-consuming, manual uploading and tagging process that is inherent in other products. Second, MetaJure works with all document types, including email, so it becomes the repository for all of your firm or department’s stored knowledge not just the word processing files retained by traditional document management systems. Third, MetaJure even finds and indexes the names given to file folders, which delivers more comprehensive and useful search results and improves document retrieval. And fourth, as described below, MetaJure automatically brings documents and information stored on PCs into the repository— something that has heretofore been the Achilles’ heel of traditional document management systems. Typically, half or more of our clients’ work product has been found to reside exclusively on their PCs and never makes it into their traditional document management systems or designated file shares, making the automatic collection of this information all the more important.
How do PCs work with MetaJure Smart DMS?
As part of the rollout process, MetaJure software is installed on each PC around your law firm or corporate legal department. Then, on a daily basis, MetaJure copies all new documents, emails and folders from each PC to the MetaJure server. Copies of each email, document and folder are permanently retained on the MetaJure server unless the original email, document or folder is deleted from the source PC.
How are PC-based documents and email treated in MetaJure search results?
When a user launches a search for a document or for historic firm or department knowledge, MetaJure automatically returns all responsive documents, emails, email attachments and folders that reside on the user’s PC, in addition to whatever network-based documents and folders the user has permission to access. Each user can elect to share documents, email attachments and/or emails with selected users around the law firm or legal department. If another user has elected to share their folders, documents and/or emails or email attachments with you, then any of the materials they have shared that are responsive to your search query will automatically appear in your search results. If a user does not elect to share PC-based folders and contents, then this individual is the only one who can search and view those materials.
How do most law firms and legal departments handle sharing of PC-based documents and email?
Law firms and legal departments have approached sharing PC-based knowledge in a variety of ways. Some have left to the discretion of each user whether to share materials and what to share. Others have implemented automatic sharing between lawyers and supporting secretaries, or have left it to the discretion of practice groups and client teams to set preferred sharing practices among their members. Some firms and departments have taken an approach built on the philosophy that “the more knowledge shared the better” and have encouraged or mandated broad, firm-wide or department-wide sharing, subject to exceptions for personal folders, management folders and the like.
How does MetaJure Smart DMS work with other data sources?
MetaJure indexes (but does not copy) documents on other data sources as selected by the firm, including network file shares, SharePoint™, Worldox™, etc. MetaJure is integrated with your Active Directory and automatically follows all permissions set on your network file shares and other dedicated storage sites such as SharePoint™. Simply put, MetaJure makes available to each user only those documents that your existing permissions structure allows.
Our network file permissions might have some issues. Should I be concerned as we roll out MetaJure Smart DMS?
While MetaJure users can only view and retrieve documents in accordance with your underlying permissions structure, this powerful application can bring to light previously unknown folders or documents for which your organization may not have implemented permissions, or for which permissions do not follow your preferred practice. Clients who have come across this issue have responded with several different approaches. Some elected to keep certain data sources outside MetaJure until the permissions were set or corrected – in essence rolling out MetaJure on a data source by data source basis as IT confirmed that the correct permissions were set on each source. Other clients elected not to clean up these pre-existing, historic permissions issues. Instead, they reminded users to follow their professional obligations concerning confidential information and documents, similar to reminders about not reading confidential documents left in printers or in conference rooms, or not actively seeking out confidential information on the firm’s existing file shares or file rooms.
Regardless of the direction our clients choose, MetaJure provides a detailed log of all user activity giving you confidence, should you ever need to confirm user compliance with firm or department policy, track user history, or confirm that the confidentiality of a particular document has been maintained. And, in almost all cases, our clients have found the cleanup process to be much simpler and faster than they expected.
What if we acquire new files or documents from lateral hires or merger partners?
New data sources such as documents from lateral hires, new clients, merger partners or the legal documents of acquired companies in the case of a legal department are simply enrolled as a new location in MetaJure. MetaJure indexes and treats them as any other data source. This automated process is fast, easy and avoids the hours of labor that most current systems require to manually upload these files.
What if we have some image-only documents?
MetaJure automatically processes image-only documents such as PDFs or TIFFs using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology so they are fully text-searchable. Furthermore, MetaJure continuously monitors for newly-saved scanned documents like these and automatically processes them, as well.
Is MetaJure Smart DMS easy to use?
Yes, it is as simple and intuitive as a search on Google, with the ability to filter by the location in which the document was found, the file type and the date of the document. MetaJure is also integrated into all of the Microsoft Office™ applications with a link on the toolbar of those applications, so that it is never more than one click away.
How is MetaJure Smart DMS priced?
MetaJure is a SaaS (software as a service) offering with an annual fee that covers all users and their devices in your organization. We are constantly improving MetaJure with new features. All updates and improvements are included in your yearly fee as is the crawling, indexing and tagging of all new data produced by your law firm or department.
Are there other MetaJure users I can talk to?
Yes, we can put you in touch with user in both law firm and corporate legal departments who are more than happy to talk to you about MetaJure and the multiple benefits they realized by moving to MetaJure Smart DMS. Simply contact us at 425.444.7473 or sales@metajure.com.
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