Using Virtual Workspace.

• Author: PETERSON, ERIC
• Position: Rossi & Maricle P.C. - Brief Article

Company: Rossi & Maricle P.C.

Founded in 1985, Rossi & Maricle is a law firm based in downtown Denver that serves a range of corporate clients. The company also has offices in Germany and Mexico City.

Facts:

* Every paper document from the firm's caseload is scanned and converted to text via Optical Character Recognition. Clients and other law firms involved in a particular case can work on projects or files in the system, regardless of where they are or the time of day.

It's "a step beyond e-mail," said Rossi & Maricle President and Managing Director Ronald Rossi.

* A Microsoft beta site for 10 years, the company's network runs on Windows 2000. It's used Office 2000 since 1998, and its e-mail runs on a POP3 system with Microsoft Exchange -- in short, no unusual equipment or software.

* Currently, users search the 220,000 documents in Rossi & Maricle's public folders by keyword, then make changes and address issues on documents pertaining to them. Each client has a file.

* "The biggest handicap is employee training," said Rossi. The firm established an intranet for the systems, with links to related forms, case law, and secondary sources and documents. The system works better as more people use it, but employees tend to revert to old face-to-face methods.

Problem: How can Rossi & Maricle make this system work and then take it beyond a simple database?

Q: What are the limits of collaborating through e-mail versus a web-based system?

A: "When you are working with groups that are virtual, e-mail is a problem," said Doug Gilbert, Castle Rock-based director of consulting for Cogos Consulting Inc. (See www.cogos.com.) "You'll hit (e-mails collaborative) limit with three people. When you get above three, you begin to have problems. It's very much about being on the same page."

Sharing files on the Internet, Gilbert said, presents different problesm. Public folders turn into "a filing cabinet where we just throw things," he noted. "You get too many drawers. You're not sure what the labels mean. You can't really scale to a broader enterprise."

Q: With all the changes and people involved in a file, how does the firm protect the data and privacy?

A: Cogos' service helps companies establish rules of use, including...