Any person following the recent Schabir Shaik trial will have noticed the prosecution`s case was based on an enormous amount of research into documents and communications belonging to the accused and his companies. The fact is, without the work involved in wading through those mountains of documents, the case may have come to a different conclusion if it ever made it to court.
The amount of paperwork attorneys are generally involved with in their daily tasks is staggering. When preparing for a case and a court appearance; when researching a topic or a person related to a specific case; and when gathering and sorting evidence into useable format, attorneys can easily find themselves filing, indexing and generally having hundreds, if not thousands of documents passing through their hands. And this is multiplied many times over when considering the document loads handled in a law firm with multiple attorneys.
To effectively serve their clients, attorneys need to have access to a host of documents pertaining to each client, as well as records of past communications, be it meetings, phone calls or e-mails. A small one-person law firm can probably afford to have an assistant file all this information and dig it up every time the client books a meeting, but for substantial cases and larger firms, manual filing can end up being more detrimental to success than beneficial. Imagine the embarrassment of having to admit a document or client file has gone missing.
Implementing an electronic document management system in which all documents are scanned and digitally indexed would enhance the ability of the attorney to service clients quickly and efficiently with all the appropriate documentation at hand. Moreover, the cost savings associated with electronic document delivery would be significant as people would be able to focus on value-adding work instead of looking for files.
The value of documents
The cost savings associated with electronic document delivery would be significant as people would be able to focus on value-adding work instead of looking for files.
Paul Mullon, marketing director of Metrofile
There are many benefits to be gained from scanning physical documents into digital format and storing the originals in a safe location. Three of the primary benefits are:
* Compliance: Even attorneys are affected by the new compliance regulations and recommendations. Their records can contain confidential information about clients and court cases, and the retention of these may be governed by time limits. In other words, they may be ill advised to keep client records for longer than five or seven years - depending on the record. In a manual filing system, these time limits will have to be ignored or someone will have to check every record on a regular basis to determine which should be destroyed. This is clearly a waste of time and resources. In an electronic document management system, scanned records can be automatically marked for deletion after a set number of years, or the system can be configured to send an alert to the attorney, requesting that the records be examined and action taken. Electronic management means the records in question are brought to the notice of the attorney, who can quickly decide what to do with them.
* Continuity: By working with an image of the original document, notes and annotations can be automatically stored with the record and always be available when it is called up. Clients will know their documentation is safely stored, unlikely to be lost because someone misfiled it or left it somewhere, while the information contained in the record is instantly accessible.
* Speed of access: Attorneys charge according to the time they spend on each client`s case. In other words, if a meeting is held up for 30 minutes while a missing document is found, that is time the client pays for. Indexed electronic records are easily retrievable at the click of a mouse button. For sensitive documents, assigning an access code will prevent anyone from seeing the information it contains unless they know the password - and should someone try to access the document without authorisation, their actions can be recorded.
By adopting an electronic document management policy and processes, the legal profession can increase the time it spends on value-added work without requiring new resources. Losing physical documents is not a new practice and it`s not one that can be charged for; however, losing clients because of bad records management does cost, in terms of both money and reputation.
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