My Paperless Office

As I promised, I will provide an outline of what my paperless office is like. First, please understand I use Mac's in my office. I switched to Mac's last August and my only comment is, why did I wait so long to do it. For me, it was a great choice!! They just work without the need of an IT person and I don't worry about crashes and other problems I had before with my windows machines.

My practice consist of 75 percent domestic and 25 percent criminal defense work. I moved my office to my house back in January of this year and in order to stay within the limits of the space my wife let me have, I decided to work towards the paperless office. When I say paperless, I do not mean I have no paper in my files. I do keep in hard-copy all those things I may need for exhibits at a trial or hearing. I also keep affidavits and other documents signed by my clients. For me, the better description of my office would be a digital office.

In order to meet my goal of the paperless office and the scanning of all documents that come in, I purchased the Fijitsu ScanSnap scanner. This is a wonderful little machine that takes up no more space on my desk than my laptop. Best of all, it just works!!! And yes, I do have a Mac driver for this scanner and it also works.

I also use the full version of Adobe Acrobat. When a document comes into my office by mail, I place it in the ScanSnap and push the button. It is scanned and opens Acrobat. I than OCR it and place it in my client's file folder on my hard drive in the appropriate sub-folder. (more on this later on.) I than decide if this is something I may need for trial or hearing. If not, I send the original to my client with a note stating I have filed this document digitally and this is their copy.

Faxes work in a similar fashion. I no longer have the "normal" fax machine in my office. Instead, I use the ScanSnap and my computer to do all incoming and outgoing faxes. To do this, I use a great program called pagesender. If there is a document I need to fax that is not already on my computer, I place it in the scanner and use pagesender as the printer choice and send it. Incoming faxes are received directly into my computer and I read them and place them in my client's file folder in the appropriate sub-folder. I than send the original to the client for their personal file. Pagesender also keeps all outgoing faxes in a file so I have a history of sent faxes. I also have it set up to send me an email telling me that the fax was sent. I open the email attachment and place the confirmation in the client's file sub-folder so I have a digital record of the fax sent. This comes in handy when opposing counsel tries to claim they did not receive the fax. I simply open up the digital record and show the court and counsel that, yes you did receive it and this is when I sent it. At least I am covered and can show the court I sent the fax.

Since I wanted to store items by the client's name, I sit up what is a digital file cabinet on my hard-drive. Each client has a file drawer, and in that drawer are folders and sub-file folders. If a client has more than one case or matter, that case or matter has its own file-folder under the client's name. Below is an example of a family law file folder. Just click on it and it will enlarge for your viewing.

File Folder.pdf

Since I moved my office to my house, I had to make the necessary adjustments to deal with the need to keep a part-time paralegal. We do this by email and fax. This will be a future post, sometime this week. If I go into it here, this post will be way too long.

If you are considering the digital office, I can only say this, "just do it." I have everyone of my client's files on my laptop. When I leave my office, I digitally have my entire file cabinet with me. No matter where I am or what I am doing, I have access to everything I may need. This is also great if I have to wait between hearings. No longer do I sit around the courthouse playing games on my PDA. Well, sometimes I do. Now, I can take my laptop to my favorite coffee shop, as I am right now, and get some work done.

I would be happy to answer any comments or emails you might have. So please do so. Also, I would love to hear from those that also use the paperless office concept. The more we can learn from each other the better. This would be a great subject to have guest bloggers for. If you are interested in guest posting, please send me an email.

Comments

[Cynthia T]

I have found your entry quite informative. I am considering a paperless office, but until your article all information that I found made me feel that I may be getting in way over my head. Thanks to you I see this as do-able. One question, I noticed that you stated that you set your files up in a digital file cabinet. What software application did you use for this process and is it difficult to sort your information looking for a particular client base (i.e. criminal cases)?
Thanks

[A. Guest]

Interesting. I have essentially the same set up as you. I use a dual 1.8GHz G5 as my main computer with a 12-inch PB and a Blackberry phone. Question: I am considering the Fujitsu (have been for some time) but the driver issue has held me back. Are you using a hack of the Japenese Mac driver or do you have a copy of the English beta driver.

Great blog.