Collaborative computing between law departments and their law firms

Having just read a 2000 white paper by Steele Scharbach Associates, I got to thinking about their term “collaborative computing.” The two authors write that collaborative computing covers three basic technologies: groupware, workflow, and document management.

My thoughts went to how law departments can use technology to work more closely with their law firms. Joint, online document drafting; video-conferencing; data entry on both sides into matter management systems (See my post of April 2, 2006 on Predix); e-billing exchanges; extranets (See my post of Aug. 27, 2005 on the seeming scarcity of extranets.); joint updates of law department intranets (See my post of April 5, 2005.); real-time access by clients to time and billing systems. Perhaps several of these fall into the basic technologies of the white paper.