Nowadays, many lawyers are moving towards a paperless law office due to the many benefits it offers. These include savings in terms of cost and time, reduced space requirements, enhanced security, and improved client service apart from achieving the important objective of going green. Partnering with professional document scanning companies is the practical way to scan and convert paper-based legal records into electronic format. However, there are several myths associated with going paperless in the legal sector. This makes some lawyers reluctant to switch to digital documents. The following are some common myths and facts about going paperless in the law office.
Myth 1: Paperless law practice means eliminating every piece of paper
Many lawyers believe that a paperless law firm means getting rid of every piece of paper. This may be impractical for many lawyers. A paperless office means an office where the usage of paper is minimal. Scanning and converting documents into digital format helps reduce the amount of paper. However, you may not be able to eliminate the paper documents altogether. It is necessary that some documents are retained in hard copy. With digitization, you can more easily organize the files of your law firm. In addition, switching to a paperless system helps law firms to save space, time as well as money.
Myth 2: Going paperless merely means digitizing documents
An essential part of a paperless law firm is the creation of an office workflow that includes the digitization process. As part of that workflow, it is necessary to make sure that the law firm has a consistent case naming and filing system that everyone uses. You should include plans for documents that you will maintain in paper format. Creating this workflow and sticking to it is imperative as it ensures that the documents of your law firm are organized and easily accessible.
Myth 3: Paperless law offices may pose data security issues
Some lawyers are hesitant about moving to a paperless law firm as they believe that paperless law offices are less secure. Outsourcing legal document scanning tasks to a reliable document scanning company can ensure that your sensitive data remains confidential and protected during the entire process. Outsourcing also helps to quickly retrieve the documents that you need in a matter of seconds, share and collaborate on documents without risking confidential information, create backup files and records for disaster recovery, improve efficiency in storage, retention, and disposition of information, reduce storage costs, and improve customer service.
All you have to do is to ensure that the document scanning service provider you partner with has robust security measures in place, and securely encrypts the data. The data should be backed up to servers located in different geographic regions. Storing your law firm’s digital documents in the cloud not only provides you with a secure backup of your entire law firm’s data, but also provides built-in disaster protection for your law firm. In fact, offsite storage of digital documents offers a safe, accessible form of backup for your law firm’s files. Storing your entire law firm’s data in a secure cloud environment helps protect your data from onsite physical damage.
By debunking myths such as the above, the misinformation regarding going paperless can be corrected, and law firms can reap the benefits of going paperless.
