I recently received a question from a boutique family law practice regarding a move to the proverbial paperless office. Changing the way you practice is a complex issue and reducing paper or file-size is one we have considered a number of times here. Since there is a growing interest in using technology to reduce paper use and storage I offer a few thoughts here.
It’s become clear to me that only certain types of practice lend themselves to an ‘electronic file.’ We have identified our commercial area (takeovers, mergers, acquisitions etc) as one that lends itself to this approach. This is largely because it is what they are already effectively doing. Just about everything they write is electronic, everything they receive is electronic and the only things that end up on paper are executed agreements/dutiable instruments etc.
We have used a document management system since about 1992, and it stores all our electronic documents – any kind of document, including email, sounds, movies etc as well as normal Word/Excel/PowerPoint. All our document templates and precedents are in it as well, and you can scan incoming paper correspondence and register the scans against the matter as well. I can find documents from 1992 and open them in under 10 seconds. The idea is that you don’t need to worry about where you store your documents – you let the document management system worry about that. All you need to do is link the document to a matter, give it a title and any keywords you want. It’s a handy way to find advices you’ve previously written that may be reusable.
Any solution you choose must cater for email. Our DMS allows us to drag and drop from within Outlook straight into a folder which registers the email and attachments into the system. They are set to be read-only to avoid changing the originals. There are other solutions where the email is sent or read from within the DMS. These often tie in with the email gateway and scan the subject line for a matter number or keyword so that it can be registered without further intervention.
We also use multifunction devices on our floors, which allow us to print/photocopy/scan documents to PDF or TIFF very easily. We can then distribute paper documents throughout our offices in Australia and New Zealand in minutes, as well as register some documents into the DMS. We don’t scan all incoming correspondence as that’s not cost-effective for us, but there are certainly certain practice types where that is possible.
Litigation is a different question altogether. You often need the entire file or at least a reasonable part of it in court for mentions/callovers/etc. I can’t see how a full electronic file will work for such matters, as you’d need to be very adept with a laptop computer at the bar table. It also would preclude you handing documents up to the bench when you don’t have spare copies.
Another issue to consider is the case where your client changes to another solicitor – how do you pass the file on?
On a related note, I have talked to multi-office firms where their typing staff is located in only one office. The lawyers dictate to digital voice recorders and the voice recordings are copied to that office for transcription. The completed document is registered into a DMS and the lawyer notified that it is ready.
I suggest that instead of looking for a paperless office, you look for a paper-reduced office. A document management system is a very good start. In addition, I suggest you start with one process which could become paperless. Finally, you should document your rules and processes, monitor compliance, and refine these as you go along. Think carefully about how these rules will ensure compliance with legislation and other obligations to keep records.
calvin 
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