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Use of Open Source Software in Legal Firms?
jhenkins asks: "This is a question to all of the legal beagles out there, especially practicing lawyers and advocates. Normally there are quite a number of restrictions posed on law professionals with regards to file formats by courts etc, but I would like to know whether there are some success stories out there. It would be very interesting to get some opinions in this field, because where I come from (South Africa) this is an almost *total* M$ stronghold. The only area where I saw a really big score for Open Source is the adoption of things like Kolab for groupware and scheduling. So, do you use Open Source software in your line of work? If you do, please let me know what you use and for which purpose (things like document management, knowledge bases, word processing et al). Thanks!"
I recall that SCO's lawyers made a lot of use of open-source software.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
In any case, in the US, the legal world is the last huge stronghold of WordPerfect, due partly to inertia but also to the fact that its word count apparently is more accurate than Word's.
Several years ago I was involved in putting a law firm on the internet, and helping install a LAN in their office here. They really wanted to go Linux as much as possible, even then, but their HQ IT weenie refused, because MS was all he knew.
There are several law firms in town now that rely almost exclusively on OSS; I met with a vendor today who set up one of the most recent ones. He walked in for a first meeting, and they asked, "What kind of open source solution can you provide us for [list of stuff]?" He will provide whatever meets the clients' needs and wants, but he is an OSS advocate, so he was a happy camper. Saved them a hunk of change, too.
Sorry I can't give more details at this point, but here in Texas, at least, it's doable.
I think I read something somewhere (maybe even here on /,, but i'm too lazy to search) a while back about how the House/Senate standardized on some version of Office (97 or 2k, crw) and a custom XML setup.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I am not a lawyer, but I am a project manager the technology department as a major NYC law firm.
We're basically a Microsoft and Novell shop, and we've been trying desperately to move away from Novell. We're not in any danger of moving from Microsoft, but we have started to take a serious look at using Linux or *BSD for some of out lighter load web and file servers.
The impetus for this was Microsoft licensing. We're happy in general with Microsoft products, but law firms need a wide variety of applications, most of which we've bought third party. The problem here is that so many require or strongly recommend being on their own server (or atleast virtual server). The cost of licenses for every separate server adds up very quickly.
So we're looking at FOSS as an alternative to some of the machines that don't absolutely require Windows.
The major stumbling block is accountability. We're not prepared to start signing enterprise agreements with Red Hat unless we're going to make a major shift, and that's not happening any time soon. right now Microsoft and our software vendors can be held accountable for their software (we've been very proactive with our boxes, and have not had any significant security, virus, or spyware problems). We're concerned about who can be held accountable for FOSS solutions.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
I provide services to mostly lawyers. My system uses OOo, and that means they have to use OOo at least a tiny bit to use it. I've had several clients ask me more about it and if they could use it on other computers. They're shocked when I tell them how much OOo costs, what kind of licensing it's under, and what open source is.
I know at least one of my clients decided to start rolling it out in his offices because he liked it, liked the pricing, and felt it was a good alternative.
What makes law firms special?
They use pirated copies of Windows and Office just like the rest of us.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
But unlike the rest of us, they will sue anyone who calls them pirates. Arrrr! Avast ye tortlubbers. Swab the court, ye scurvy witness!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The kind of software their clients use will directly determine what software/OS/apps will be in use at a particular firm.Of course law firms have some flexibility in using F/OSS for back-end admin (billing, IT operations, etc.), but in my experience (I used to work in IT for a large international law firm) there are few firms that have ventured far from MSFT.
IMHO, F/OSS adoption will reach law firms via a trickle-down effect from their clients. As open-source adoption among corporations grows, so will it grow in the legal industry.
I want my money first!
Just like any business, there is a lot of exchange with other lawyers and a lot of pressure to have your stuff look like everyone else's. Those things made me give up using open source for public material (though I still took my private notes w/Emacs!).
but I do some contracting for a company that has many legal requirements. They develop databases for medical institutions. To my knowledge there is no OSS being used, but that's primarily because the company was founded after the CEO took a liking to Filemaker.
The company has no problem making use of Macs as well as Windows machines. If there was an OSS Filemaker Pro clone, I'm sure that they'd take a look at it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Every law firm that I have consulted for/worked for in an I.T. role has actually used Macs. MIght seem strange, but it is true
+(norad) if you rearrange the letters in mother in law, you get woman hitler
I have a good friend who manages a small but thriving Law Firm (20+ lawyers). They all use Firefox as their primary browser, the are working with Open Office on some desktops (although MS($) office is used as well).
BTW - They also use a Novell network which has had 0 critical viruses distributed over their network since installed 2 years ago. They are not currently on Linux but are considering for their network.
Isn't there an open source program out there that can create files in Word format?
It's easy for a Free program to output RTF, which is in essence a character-based encoding of a Microsoft Word document. If you write RTF and name it .doc, the recipient's copy of Microsoft Word will open it, and the recipient won't know the difference.
And as for reading .doc files, OpenOffice.org can read damaged ones better than even Microsoft Word can.
Or in any other firm for that matter. OSS should be illegal. Linux will die a grisly death, and then where will you be? Sucking on BillG's big moneycock.
Have a poke around on Groklaw - there are several people active there who identify themselves as lawyers who are certainly into FOSS that you could talk to.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
A friend of mine is a business lawyer and he needed some way to easily create a PDF. I set him up with primoPDF. http://www.primopdf.com. It's a derivative of Ghostscript and even though it looks like a commercial site, the software is LGPL.
So when he wants to make a PDF of some papers, he'll use it.
I won't release his name, but hope that information helps a little.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
We are using a Gentoo box w/CRM-114 & Spamassassin to filter out spam. We also use MySQL with an app to collect print job info from all our printers for tighter resource accounting. I would like to move a M$SQL app to MySQL but the application developer doesn't have any plans on porting it over - any body out there familar with ProLaw?
The fed courts also make many of their forms available in WordPerfect format. I have never seen a downloadable form in MS Word!
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Back when I was in Houston, TX, a number of the lawfirms used a document tracking system calls DOCSOpen, (not open source as I recall) ... at any rate, it was basically a DLL call that when ever you tried to Open/Save/Save As it called this third party application, that was essential a front-end to a SQL database, used for document tracking. Interesting really, slightly bloated, and the parent company offered NO suggestions on how to optimize the database.
At anyrate, that type of database gets to be rather large, fairly quickly. Essentially it just stores the location and extra meta-data about the file, revision history, user tracking, etc... but does something similar exist in an FOSS world, last time I looked it did not.
The database portion of it is relatively trivial, in that its just a tracking database, but does either OO.org or Abiword or (insert favorite WP here) have a call that will bring up an alternate save screen?
As I recall, this DOCSOpen program worked with either Word or WordPerfect applications (again, it was activated by the basic function).
harryk
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
I havent started work yet and am still in education at the moment but, even though the school is mainly M$ XP based, i think one of the network servers runs off Linux.
There is also OpenOffice on some of the computers which is very good when i transfer work from my laptop with MandrakeLinux on it. There is also GIMP on the network too and I think the head of the IT department was thinking about installing FireFox or Mozilla over the network. I tried using portable firefox on my USB pen once but the proxy server is really restricting and let me to bugger all.