Firm makes split decision with document innovation

City law firm Lovells has ditched the Lexis/Nexis CompareRight tool for comparing documents and signed up firm-wide to DeltaView.Manufactured by Workshare Technology, DeltaView provides comparison in a split-screen format, producing a third document that highlights any inconsistencies.The predominance of documents exchanged by e-mail means that instant comparison is vital, said Lovells desktop application manger Ashley Jones, who is supervising the implementation.

Document comparison is absolutely fundamental.

It is often the last thing that a lawyer works through the night on.The firm had previously used the Lexis/Nexis CompareRight tool; however, during Lovells conversion from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word, it found that some documents were failing in CompareRight.Mr Jones said: We were able to evaluate DeltaView by running documents through it whenever they failed with CompareRight.

With few exceptions, DeltaView would do the job wherever CompareRight failed.

The move is part of Lovells work on standardising its IT infrastructure.

All staff are being provided with a standard desktop that includes MS Office, DOCS Open and DeltaView.

DeltaView is in use in 25 of the top 100 UK law firms and 53 of the top 100 in the US.

LINKS www.workshare.net Andrew Towler