A Paperless Law Office in 12 Simple Steps (Part 2 of 2)
Last week we discussed ideas for launching a paperless initiative at your law firm. Let’s keep the conversation flowing with a few more suggestions.
7. Get rid of that traditional fax machine. If you’re still holding on to that traditional hardware, consider converting to a desktop scanning solution (check out faxcompare.com). Remove your fax number from business cards, email signatures and Firm letterhead – modern up!
8. Get a professional PDF manipulation tool. Acrobat has long been the gold standard in legal for dealing with PDF’s. But today, it has many formidable competitors. If you need Bates stamping, redacting and form creation tools. Make sure you and staff are well trained in all the wonderful and useful things you can do with professional PDF tools.
9. Have a proper document management system that helps you easily save, store, search for and retrieve documents. EVERYTHING must go into the “file” in the DMS – including accounting paperwork. If you don’t have a DMS look at NetDocuments (designed for law firms!). Make sure everyone is fully trained on how the DMS works – if not, people will get frustrated and they won’t use this critical tool.
10. Scan all incoming mail that makes sense to scan. Have the receptionist / mail room scan and distribute the mail electronically or save directly to the document management system. A question I always get asked here is, “How will I know if an important document has been added to the file if I don’t see it on my desk? I have hundreds of matters.” Most document management systems have alerts that can be set to notify users there has been activity in a file. Find out how your system handles that.
11. Create digital signature stamps / “clipart” to insert signatures into applications like Word or Acrobat. This avoids the wasteful process of printing something in order to sign it, scan it back in and ultimately email it.
12. Configure Remote access and portability. Make sure there is reliable and easy access back into the network or into the document management system from wherever you are so no one has to complain that the only way they can have the entire file with them is in a paper mountain.
In the end, you can take all the steps above, but without commitment, you are destined to fail. Commit to this change. Make everyone in your Firm commit. Going paperless is easier than ever thanks to readily available technology. There’s almost no excuse for not going paperless – well, as far as technology goes. The hard part is the human part – changing habits, committing to “new” processes, getting buy-in and getting training. But don’t let that stop you – make the commitment and get started right away. Within no time, you will wonder how you ever practiced efficiently with all those paper piles laying around!