Free Software for the Legal Office

by Jeremy Malcolm

Introduction

It is a truism that the largest component of the cost of a computer system is not the computer hardware, it is the software. Indeed, Microsoft built its empire on the assumption that because computer hardware is constantly becoming cheaper and more powerful, it will eventually be (effectively) free, leaving software as the highest value item in any computer system.

Or at least, that assumption used to be a truism. In recent years, it has begun to be radically challenged as not only hardware, but also software has become free – and not only free in a theoretical sense, like Microsoft's hypothetically free computer hardware, but truly free, in every sense of the word (as will be explained below).

How can this be so? It is because the computer industry is discovering that it was never software that was the fundamental unit of value in a computer system, it was service. Concurrently with this realisation, two developments in software publishing have emerged that make it possible for the first time to operate a computer using free software exclusively, paying only for the service and support you may require.

The first of these developments is that as desktop computers have become ubiquitous and software has become commoditised, the marginal costs of software publication have been driven so low that it has been possible for commercial software publishers to rely on subsidiary revenue streams from software, rather than on its up-front purchase price, to generate their income. Netscape Navigator (which is free to use) was one of the products spearheading this revolutionary business model.

The second and even more radical development has been the emergence into popular consciousness of open source software. Open source software is not new; it has in fact been around for longer than 30 years. It is also known simply as "free software", but it is free in more than one sense. Whereas Netscape Navigator is free to use (and may be more accurately described as "freeware" rather than "free software"), it withholds from its users many other freedoms – such as the freedom for users to modify the software or to sell it.

Netscape 6, which has just been released, is derived from a new version of the product called Mozilla, which is currently under development. Mozilla is open source software, which means that it is not only free (to borrow a popular analogy) in the sense of "free beer", but also in the sense of "freedom" – the complete source code is freely available and is being collaboratively developed by thousands of software authors from around the globe.

This is the primary strength of open source software: such software is not the arcane, proprietary output of a locked room of paid software engineers, but the result of the collaboration of a widely distributed group of enthusiasts – some paid, but most unpaid – who write the software for their own use, for enjoyment, for recognition, or simply for the benefit of their peers in the so-called "free software community".

Free software for lawyers

The good news for lawyers is that much of the free software that is now available is available for use in a legal office. As proof, my own practice (which is both a law firm and a technology consultancy) is to my knowledge Australia's first whose computer systems operate entirely using free software (aside from a non-free accounting package, shortly to be replaced).

Many partners and practice managers are reticent about relying on free software in their legal office, fearing that software that is not supported by a large commercial software company such as Microsoft is likely to contain a greater number of bugs and be less widely supported. In fact (as those who have used both Microsoft software and its free equivalents will attest), quite the reverse is true.

In comparison to commercial software, bugs are generally much fewer and much more quickly corrected in open source software. The reason is that there are a greater number of developers (thousands, in some cases) working on each program, enabling bugs to be isolated and removed much more quickly than in the case of a commercial product to which only a select number of developers have access to the source code.

Similarly, support is in general more readily for open source software than for commercial software, firstly because the many users of open source software provide support to each other (generally for free), and secondly because there are no restrictions imposed by the software developers on those who may provide support for their products on a commercial basis.

Server software

Although free software has undergone a renaissance in the last few years with its acceptance and support by such computing heavyweights as Sun and IBM, in the legal office it has yet to make such a substantial impact. With the growing maturity of many free software packages for desktop as well as server computing, it may be time for this to change.

Focussing first on servers – in other words, the computers that are shared by a workgroup rather than being situated on or under somebody's desk as their private workstation – much of the available open source software has a very long pedigree and is in many cases the software from which industry standards have been set. Examples of applications for the use of free software on servers in the legal office include the following:

File and print sharing - The archetypal purpose of an office server, open source products are readily available to provide a stable and efficient means of making files and printers available across a workgroup. Running under one of the free Unix-like operating systems such as Linux or FreeBSD, software known as Samba is very commonly used as a file and print server for Microsoft Windows machines, and can even operate as a controller for a Windows NT domain, saving you thousands of dollars in licensing fees. If your workstations are set up to use a Novell Netware server, you can accomplish the same result using software called mars_nwe.

Backup and disaster recovery - Of course the free Unix-like operating systems have their own "native" network filesystems also, such as NFS and Coda. Coda has the advantage that – like Windows 2000 (although predating it by some years!) – it allows computers such as laptops to be disconnected from the network without losing access to network drives or directories. Coda also allows your office servers to replicate their resources between each other, letting you continue to work even if one of them should unexpectedly crash. There are also many fine tape backup systems available for free operating systems.

Intranet and groupware - Setting up an office intranet using free software is extremely easy. In fact, the world's most popular Web server (the software that powers the Web sites we visit on the Internet) is free software, called Apache. Using this and groupware software such as phpGroupWare, Eridu, TWIG or Jetspeed provides a ready-to-run Web-based groupware solution equivalent to something like Lotus Notes/Domino, including mail, calendaring and tasks, and collaboration tools.

Email and fax - One of the most trivial uses for a server running a free operating system (usually in conjunction with its role as a gateway to the Internet for your office) is to act as a mail server to deliver mail within your firm and to the outside world. But it can also host public mailing lists (self-maintaining email discussion groups for use within or outside your firm), send and receive faxes, and scan incoming email for junk messages and viruses. Free software is also available to act as a voicemail system, and even – incredibly – as a software-based PABX system which could save you thousands of dollars on equipment.

Desktop software

The operating system you use on your desktop computers may not be the same as the operating system the office servers run. Undeniably, Microsoft Windows has a stranglehold on the desktop operating system market at the moment, and not only in the legal profession. Whilst the free operating systems are gaining ground and can be used very effectively as a desktop operating system, I will expand the focus of this section of the article to include a look at the free desktop software available for Windows as well as for other platforms.

Office suites – A number of free office packages have recently become available. Abisource is an Open Source project that has developed a free word processor called AbiWord which is available both for Windows and for free operating systems such as Linux. However even it has recently been overshadowed by the release into open source of Sun's StarOffice package, which combines word processing, presentation graphics, spreadsheet, database, scheduling and more. Version 5.2 of StarOffice is the most complete version currently available (although it precedes the change of licensing from "freeware" to "open source") and is available for Windows, Linux and Solaris. It is fully Microsoft-Office compatible.

Legal practice management – VirtuaLaw is an open source legal practice management system. Although currently only available for Microsoft Windows, VirtuaLaw can work under other operating systems using the free Windows emulation software, WINE. VirtuaLaw offers a very broad range of features including billing, document scanning and central storage, schedule and task management, messaging, contact management and document templating. Its main shortcoming is that, being American, it lacks support for things like A4 paper and the GST. But the best thing about open source software is that if it does not support the features you want, you are free to modify the software to add them. By the time this article sees print, my consultancy will have done precisely that, allowing VirtuaLaw to be effectively used by Australian practitioners.

Precedents – Not exactly software, but yes, the open source ethic does even extend to legal precedents. At http://dmoz.org/Society/Law/Legal_Products/Self-Help/Forms/ is an extensive directory of legal forms and precedents, most but not all of which are available for free. Naturally, few of these forms are written for Australian jurisdictions and so cannot be used without substantial modification. Nonetheless, they are are useful starting point for lawyers when drafting a new document. Once you have downloaded the forms you need, you can convert them to PDF documents and email them to your clients for their review, all using free software!

Conclusion

Whilst it is still a very foreign concept for many lawyers (particularly, perhaps, intellectual property lawyers!) the insurgence of free software and the open source ethos into the computing world has become irresistible, and companies such as Microsoft have already been substantially impacted by this development. If your practice is having difficulty with any of its proprietary software components, now may be the time to try the free alternative. You are probably already using free software in your office – even if it is only Internet Explorer or Netscape (neither of which, to be pedantic, are actually free in the open source sense), so the step may not be such a radical one as it may first appear. For my own practice and those others that I have assisted, the move away from proprietary to open source software has been a profitable and productive one.