Out-of-Sight - Oct/Nov '03

Out-of-Sight

The problem of metadata has spawned a number of utilities for Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook. The issue arises because a Microsoft document contains additional information about itself and its history, which the user might be unaware of, but can be visible to others. In particular, if “Track Changes” and “Comments” are used to facilitate in-house editing and are not all accepted or deleted before the document is sent to a recipient outside the firm, the recipient will be able to see those changes.

As a real-life example, when one of my clients opened a proposed contract from opposing counsel, he immediately noticed, not only the editing changes the opposing counsel had made, but a comment to the effect of “Bill, do you think we can get away with the following language?” Needless to say, during the course of contract negotiations, when he got to that paragraph, he just said, “Now, you don’t really think I am going to let you get away with that language,” and opposing counsel folded right away. In short, the Word user in this case had given away any negotiating advantage he or she might have had on this particular issue.

Metadata includes a list of people who recently edited a document (potentially showing, for example, that work billed at partner rates was actually done by junior associates or paralegals), changes to the document, hidden text, comments, Internet links, routing slips and other information. While it’s possible to eliminate some of this information), it isn’t possible to eliminate all of it. One of the first metadata cleanup utility programs, written by Payne Consulting Group, was accompanied by a large amount of publicity, including a major article in the Wall Street Journal.

Out-of-Sight by SoftWise Corp., is a new release of its entry into this field. The program is extremely sophisticated and thorough, and also will clean Excel and Outlook files.

The Outlook option is particularly useful because it automatically cleans any document e-mailed outside the firm. This means you can’t inadvertently e-mail a document containing potentially damaging metadata that must remain within the firm. This feature alone might be worth the price of admission. Also, integration with Novell GroupWise should be available by the time you read this review.

However, the sophistication of the program isn’t without its drawbacks. It can be unclear to many users what some of the options actually mean.

For example, if you have a document that contains Word field codes (say your firm has used field codes to create more sophisticated paragraph numbering schemes than Word supports natively) and you tell Out-of-Sight to eliminate them, you also will restrict the ability to have the document continue to work correctly when you receive it back from a client (i.e., in this example, paragraph numbering will no longer work). The content within the field codes remains. In short, by simply accepting all the options, a user could render the document useless in terms of making any revisions. At that point, you might be better advised simply to create a Portable Document Format file from the document and send that, which is becoming an increasingly popular option.

An easy solution to this problem is to install and configure the program from the network, allowing various options to be controlled centrally by a firm administrator. Properly configured, this can dramatically reduce the risk of user error.

Another drawback is the program requires the user (or administrator) to specify where “clean” documents are to be stored. Presently, that prevents full integration with document management programs such as Document Organization Control Systems Open, iManage or Worldox. According to the company, this should be fixed in the near future.

The program is priced at $35 per workstation for less than 10 users and $25 per workstation for 25 to 49 users (plus 20 percent maintenance and technical support). This compares very favorably with competing offerings.

For any firm that exchanges documents with opposing counsel (or even clients), a program to clean metadata is critical. Think of it as insurance — it only takes one slip through the crack to alienate a client, lose a negotiating advantage, cost the firm thousands of dollars or more. The e-mail option is particularly critical, since it automatically will protect you.

SoftWise Corp.
(718) 876-9776

www.softwise.net

Price: $35 per workstation for one to nine users; $29 per workstation for 10 to 24 users. Contact company for more pricing options.

Windows 98/NT/2000/XP

Reviewed by John Heckman, principal of Heckman Consulting (www.heckmanco.com). He has more than 20 years experience in assisting law firms with technology issues. He can be reached at heckman@
heckmanco.com or (860) 395-0881.

Oct/Nov '03 Issue

PROS
It has a complete set of options and works with Microsoft Excel and Outlook. The network installation reduces end-user error.

CONS
The significance of some options are not obvious for individual end users. Presently, it doesn’t work with document management systems.

VERDICT
If you can administer it centrally and don’t need to integrate it into a document management system, Out-of-Sight can do a good job, especially in terms of e-mail.