Open Text, Microsoft to partner

Open Text and Microsoft have announced plans to develop an integrated offering for matter life cycle management and practice support targeted to law firms worldwide. The new solution will combine Open Text’s specialized legal industry expertise with the collaboration and document management capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The integrated solution will provide complete matter life cycle management, from matter inception to closure, the companies say. Law firms will be able to manage the intake of new business and potential conflicts of interest, establish "ethical walls" separating client cases and provide records management and archiving that meet compliance requirements. Working in a matter-centric environment, users will be able to access documents and e-mail in different repositories, perform federated searches across matters and automatically assign metadata to allow correct classification of documents and pre-population of relevant information.