It’s been just over 30 years since the personal computer really took hold in the law office as the primary means of drafting and storing documents. In those three short decades, technology has advanced to the point where you can not only manage those piles of paper, but, with effective use of scanning, email storage and electronic court filing, your firm can actually start to approach a ‘paperless office’
No, I’m not suggesting that any firm can become entirely free of paper. That’s not the world we live in. But reducing your firm’s dependence on the physical, paper-based file has many advantages. Documents and emails saved in the “digital realm” take up little office space, don’t get lost under an associate’s desk, can be accessed from home on a Sunday night without driving to the office, are searchable using high speed queries, and are more “up-to-date” than a paper system which relies on your staff to physically place paper in a file folder.
Moving towards a more digital approach requires that you not only deal with documents created in your office or received via email, but also that you have efficient means to scan paper documents and correspondence into a digital format. This is where Documentscanning.net can help.
Documentscanning.net make it easy to scan and receive documents in digital form for storage – which means easier access, reduced paper shuffling and better disaster recovery options should the original documents be damaged or lost.
Some firms have resisted implementing a document management system because they think it will take longer to save documents – it doesn’t. Some users resist because it’s “easier on the old system where I can save a document wherever I want.” Saving documents without a document management system is easy – perhaps too easy, because people save documents wherever they want. This approach is similar to letting your staff create their own random drawer labels in your file room or store documents in their desk rather than in the shared file room. This lack of standardization and rules makes it easy for users to store documents in the “wrong” place and makes it difficult (if not impossible) to find them later. Adding emails and scanned documents to your system without document management means the problem will just get worse and worse.
DocuWare stores all your documents in digital file cabinets within a central “document pool.” Authorized employees can immediately access the information they need, regardless of the original format. Any time. Anywhere. Using any digital device.
For years, larger firms have been scanning documents and using Document Management systems to help organize and retain documents, spreadsheets, images and other digital files. Documentscanning.net and DocuWare allow all different sized firms to enjoy the same benefits and manage their offices more efficiently.
