CONTROLLING ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS BY PARTIES

Access to documents by parties can be controlled as follows. First, access can be controlled in accordance with access counters associated with the parties, where the documents have one or more versions. Second, access can be controlled in accordance with access levels associated with the parties. The access level of each party is one of a first access level, a second access level, a third access level, or a fourth access level. The first, second, third, and fourth access levels are ordered from the first access level to the fourth access level such that the first access level provides a greatest degree of access to the documents and the fourth access level provides a least degree of access to the documents. Third, access can be controlled in accordance with placement of organizations within a hierarchy of organizations, where the parties are organized over the organizations.