An innovative and unique new online document management service, General Counsel Direct, has just been launched. GCD allows businesses to upload all crucial documentation so that officers, advisors and business partners and relevant employees can retrieve it with a web browser. By establishing user privileges, specific workgroups can collaborate through the internet on clients or projects simultaneously. For example, directors might have access to all documents whilst the HR department might have access only to employment contracts; business partners and advisors could also have access to documents relevant to them. Hard copies can be scanned, whilst typical business documents such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files are saved to the virtual directories.

The system is designed to mirror real world structures and relationships, rather than the dated ideas of virtual drives and online filing cabinets. It automatically alerts users to any changes made to the files they are working on via email. It provides audit trails for all key documentation and so meets a host of compliance, archival and risk management requirements. In this way, it becomes a network and collaboration platform for people on different technical platforms and in different locations.

Louis Plowden-Wardlaw, Managing Director of General Counsel Direct was struck by the lack of transparency, accessibility and structure which existed in private practice and in-house document management and decided to develop the GCD system which would enable individuals to file, share and access the documents that make up the business across an organisation regardless of location.

Users pay a subscription based on the amount of information stored and the complexity of structure as opposed to user licences. This means that clients pay for what they use, enabling individuals or multinationals to use the system regardless of size.