By Jim Calloway
Director, OBA Management Assistance Program
The paperless law office (or as I prefer to call it, the digital
law office) could be one of the more important topics that lawyers
need to discuss today. Larger law firms are increasingly converting
to digital office processes. Some smaller firms have done so as well,
but it is hardly universal. We’ve heard about the paperless office
for years; promises of improved efficiency and organization, the improved
quality of life, the ability to access your client files online from
anywhere and, more recently, the ability to sync with your smart phone
and the many other benefits.
In fact, this paper will be republished in the September 15th, 2009
issue of online webzine Law Practice Today, with a number of other
articles about the paperless office. I would encourage readers to
review all of those articles online at http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/archives/september09.shtml or
just Google for “Law Practice Today.”
But one of the really important reasons for having a paperless law
practice is not about efficiency. It is about something lawyers hope
to never actually deal with ever.
One of the best reasons to go paperless really is an old-fashioned
hard-nosed business concept.
It is your self interest. CYA. Self-protection. Looking out for
number one.
And, if enlightened self-interest isn’t enough to persuade you,
it’s also the best way to protect your clients from a disaster on those
important matters that you are handling for them.
One of the best reasons to have a digital law practice is that you
can back up your data and store it offsite so that you can recover
your data and return to productivity in the event of a disaster.
In the old days, we backed up data because these new-fangled computers
might crash and we could lose our work. Today backing up your data
off-site is a benefit of a digital law practice. It means we no longer
have to rely on that fact that so many critical items exist solely
on pieces of paper. In the old days, we thought paper was the safe
way to store information and, if it was really important, we could
make a duplicate copy. Today we’ve seen what can happen to paper
files and can recognize there’s a better way.
We insure against misfortune and disaster. We prepare disaster plans
to help mitigate the consequences of a catastrophe.
So let’s think a moment about true recovery from a law office disaster.
You find that your office has been destroyed in a fire or natural
disaster. There are huge consequences to this. You’ll have to find
a new location, buy new office furnishing, deal with your insurance
company and complete a whole host of other unpleasant tasks. It would
be an understatement to say it won’t be your best month for billing.
But what about doing the work that has to be done for the clients?
With a digital law practice, you buy new computers and restore your
data to them from your backups. Depending on your setup, you may
have to load some applications on the computers; but within a few
hours, you will be up and running exactly like you were operating
in the destroyed office! (Note: Have you made backup copies of your
practice management software installation disks and other applications
and stored them safely in another location, with instructions, serial
numbers and unlocking codes?)
In a traditional non-digital law office, even where data was religiously
backed up, when the data is restored, you will still have a mess.
You may have all of the documents you created on your matters, but
you likely won’t have documents from opposing counsel. You may have
all of your e-mail from your Outlook PST file, but you won’t have
anything you wrote on a legal pad, tore off and bradded into the
file. You won’t have documents and correspondence received from opposing
counsel if you haven’t scanned them.
You will not be like the digital office lawyer, now operating just
like you were before only in a different location. You will be involved
in an on-going lengthy process of reconstructing, restoring and remembering
what was lost.
What about the work that has already been done for clients? Suppose
you have billed and been paid $5000 for a brief that is supposed
to be filed in a few days? Now suppose all copies of that brief have
gone up in smoke with the rest of the law office that burned? Most
judges would probably grant you an extension of time to file. But
who pays for the thousands of dollars worth of time to recreate the
brief? Does the client have to pay again? Do you have to absorb the
loss? Do you split it 50-50? The correct answer is never having to
answer that question because of your great backup procedures.
How busy are you right now? If you have a true disaster, you will
be trying to do the needed work for your clients while also negotiating
with your insurance agent, looking for a new location, digging through
rubble or shoveling mud.
Of course, it could be worse. If you didn’t back up your data at
all, you could be in serious trouble. You might have your paper pocket
docket book in your hand, but you would not have any forms, any work
in process, any saved treasure troves of legal research or numerous
other important items. To put it charitably, your professional reputation,
your career and your ability to earn a living would be at a crossroads.
Your conversations with your insurance agent would be most urgent
matters. At some point a friend might suggest that you should notify
your professional liability carrier as well.
Different disasters would have different impacts on a lawyer’s practice.
A burglary where the computers were stolen would raise many issues,
but at least you would still have your paper files and calendar.
Loss of a computer could mean you lose many digital documents, but
unless you were a true solo with only one computer, a lot of your
forms would be available on other office computers and you’d still
have your paper files. Retyping information from paper copies to
recreate forms would be expensive and time-consuming, but at least
it would be possible. There are many variations on the disaster theme.
But in all of them, you would still wish you had a current back
of your data stored off-site –and life would be much easier if you
had already gone “paperless.”
Paperless or digital law office operations need not mean the absence
of paper client files. You can have paper files and even take them
to court with you. But your work can be done on the computer network
and you can review every page in every file without getting up from
your desk.
Hard drive crashes are more frequent than we would like to believe.
Anyone has suffered from a real data loss due to a hard drive crash
has learned that people are not as sympathetic to this as they once
were. (“Counsel, again this week you want to talk to the court about
that hard drive crash? How many months ago was that?”)
You may have been one of those lawyers who never thought you would
ever want their mobile phone to be anything other than a phone. At
this point you can already see the day that all professionals will
have at least their calendar on their phone and most will have much,
much more. No one enters all of that information into their phone
via the keypad. They synchronize the phone with their digital office
information. Many lawyers said after Katrina that their mobile phones
were practice-savers. That is because they served as an additional
and immediately accessible backup of some of their important information,
like their calendar and more phone numbers of others than they could
remember.
Maybe the very best reason to have a digital law practice is that
you can back up your data and store it offsite so that you can recover
your data and return to productivity in the event of a disaster,
small or large.
On September 24, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. at the Oklahoma Bar Center as
a part of the ABA TECHSHOW Roadshow at the OBA Technology Fair, Debbie
Foster and I will present a free program Getting to Paperless: A
Lawyer's Step-by-Step Guide.
Should you be in the audience?
Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal Sept. 5, 2009 -
Vol. 80; No. 23.
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