Documents are the lifeblood of a law office. Discovery requests, contracts, agreements, emails, forms, and more are all vital for the firm’s functioning. It has always been a challenge for legal offices to stay atop a mountain of incoming, outgoing, and archived documents. In the modern era, more client paperwork is needed than ever before.

Poor document management strategies can lead to wasted time and resources, and guarantee inefficiency. They also do a disservice to your firm’s clients. So, what’s happening here? What can your law office do about this problem?

The Law Office Paper Problem

Decades ago, legal firms relied on printed pages. A law office would print out the necessary paperwork and keep a copy in an archive room. When a document needed to be retrieved, an associate or assistant would comb through boxes and shelves looking for the pages they needed. Sometimes that search failed. After all, documents could easily get misfiled or decay from humidity and mold.

Many law firms still follow the old model of managing their documents. This can slow the legal process down while a search is underway for some obscure piece of paper. Hours upon hours of employee time may be wasted in organizing the archives and looking for documents. It also leads to paper waste—if a document can’t be found, the office may print out another copy. Employees can also make mistakes, such as using the wrong letterhead in the print tray. This wasted paper, toner, and ink is bad for both the office’s bottom line and the environment.

The modern era adds another wrinkle to this problem: client privacy. In a busy law office, it can be all too easy to send a file to an incorrect printer or leave it in the tray and forget about it. The wrong eyes on those files can create a breach of data security. Many older printers are also vulnerable to hacking and subsequent leaking of sensitive information.

How Will This Solution Benefit Law Practices?

A document management solution and implementing paperless business practices can solve a lot of these problems. First of all, the tedious task of staying on top of legal paperwork gets streamlined. Digitized documents can be looked up, annotated, and filed away again with just a few keystrokes thanks to features including indexes, tags, and searchable .pdf files.

A document management system also has built-in redundancy. If a natural disaster strikes or there is equipment malfunction, you can access backups of your document database. The law firm could get up and running again within just a few hours, either in-office or working remotely.

Offices with document management solutions and e-documents are much less prone to the chaos resulting from using hardcopy paper documents. In a traditional firm, a document filed in the wrong place may never be found again. Hours could be spent on the search, and then paper may be wasted to print another copy. If the only copy of a document is accidentally shredded, this can trigger a different kind of crisis.

Meanwhile, electronic documents can be stored and archived digitally for safekeeping. A deleted document can be easily recovered from data backups. Thus, a document management solution can rescue your law firm from both human error and paperwork chaos.

It’s hard to overemphasize how many resources can be saved through document management. There’s employee time, as we already mentioned. Savings here free people up to focus on more productive aspects of their workday instead of manual document searches. Paper, toner, and ink are also saved, reducing the firm’s environmental footprint. Printing less also means less wear and tear on the printers. This trims repair and replacement costs.

Document management also lets a law practice create better client experiences. The firm can respond quickly and flexibly to last-minute problems. If a client has misplaced a vital document, another copy could be brought up in moments. This fast turnaround time means fewer expenses on the client’s side of things. Finally, these clients can be assured that their sensitive data is under multiple levels of protection. These include secure portals to the digital archives and top-level control over who can access or print a file.

How to Keep Your Documents Under Control

When considering a document management partner, you will have options at hand. Some things to consider include:

  • Which companies are reputable?
  • Which offers the features your law firm needs?
  • How easy is the document management software to use?
  • Will you need to schedule staff training?
  • What security options are available?
  • How will you monitor how much your law office prints?
  • What about monitoring who is accessing files and printing them?

Adopting a new document management strategy can be a big transition. This is especially true if your law practice has built up a large archive of paper documents. You’ll want to budget enough time to digitize your existing documents for a smooth transition. This way you won’t need to assign someone within your team to spend weeks doing the job.

Implementing a new document management solution is only half of the battle. It can be difficult to break the habit of automatically printing what’s needed. Work with your team to build new habits. These include:

  • double-checking that a print job is necessary
  • adding tags and updating the index on the e-documents
  • guarding passwords or security fobs for the printer
  • promptly shredding documents that have been scanned into your system
  • encouraging clients to go paperless

Streamline Your Law Office with Document Management

Paperless or paper-less is the future of the legal field. A modern document management solution enables firms to reduce wasted time and wasted resources. It increases office productivity, so your staff won’t waste hours tracking down an errant file. The software also helps you respond quickly and effectively to your clients, so they will get the best possible legal services.

Are you ready to learn more about document management for your law office? Contact KDI Office Technology today! One of our representatives will be happy to talk about your options.