Paperless Law Firm – Part 2 – Building the business case and generating buy-in

In part one of the paperless legal office, I covered identifying the benefits. Now that you’ve sold the concept to yourself (or maybe you already had), now it’s time to build that business case and start generating some buy in.

I’ve found that there is no ‘right’ way for every firm to tackle this and each firm is slightly different. In my opinion, however, there are some simple strategies that you can use to start building your business case and generate some buy-in amongst the team, which are:

1. Establishing a business case
   • Start collecting information on the following
     1. The amount of documents printed
     2. How long it takes someone to physically file a document and what that equates to in labour cost
     3. Identify the current cost of physically storing archived files
     4. Find out the cost of your business interruption insurance and if it covers the reproduction of physical files if they are destroyed by fire, water damage etc
   • Make sure you have the document management system to support you during the transition. If you don’t, identify the costs associated with implementing a new system. The system should be scalable, highly accessible and easy to use. NetDocuments is a great example of a system that ticks all the boxes for large and small firms alike.
   • Start identifying the risks associated with staying with physical files and also new risks in moving to electronic files, including the intangibles, like reputational damage etc. Think about strategies and costs associated with those risks and what impact it would have on the firm.
2. Generating buy-in
   • I’ve found that you get a better response if you start by calling the project ‘The Primary Electronic File’. This removes the stigma of ‘paperless’ and allows you to start slowly by ensuring that the primary electronic file is the most up to date version
   • When you see someone performing a labour intensive task related to a physical file (e.g. carrying a large amount of documents to court/home, staying back late to finish something that requires access to the whole file etc) ask them if they would find it easier to be able to have the whole file available online. This helps get buy in at an individual level and starts to get the team talking amongst themselves about the benefits.
   • If you hear of a physical file going missing, even for 30 mins, remind those team members shortly after the event that it was a perfect example of why a primary electronic file reduces risk.
   • Remind team members that they can still print once they move to a primary electronic file, they just need to make sure the electronic file is the complete file. This helps those team members who prefer to read on paper adjust to the change.
   • Buy a few loan tablets (Surface Pro 3 for example) and share them amongst the team to show how easy it is to go to court etc, have access to all your documents and do minor amendments and mark-ups.

There is obviously a lot more detail that I could put in here, but I hope this helps you either start or build on your paperless strategy.

In the final part of the blog I will cover implementation and measuring the success of your journey to paperless, less paper, primary electronic file or whatever name you’d like to call it.

As always, if you have any questions about anything relating to a paperless office, Infrastructure as a service, other IT strategies or you have any topics that you would like me to cover in the blog, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jason@nymbus.com.au