Matter management systems are only as good as their reporting capabilities

Matter management systems all have reporting capabilities, from canned reports that come with installation to elaborate report writers. The low-tech way to supplement those capabilities is to export data to a spreadsheet and massage it there (See my post of May 8, 2008: export data to a spreadsheet.).

Further sophistication comes from third-party packages that collect and report from databases, such as the six report-writers covered by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) 2008 Law Department Survey. I list them in the order that the 45 respondents checked them off as being used.

Crystal (48%)

Business Objects (23%)

MS Access (16%)

SQL Reporting Services (14%)

Cognos (11%)

BrioQuery (5%)

Other (7%)

These programs powerfully enhance a law department’s capabilities to do data analysis and reporting, but they also require specialized expertise to do so.