Benefits and Pitfalls

During our training to become a paralegal, legal secretary or attorney we are constantly reminded not to get rid of stuff “as you never know when you might need it”.

Okay so it’s a given that most of the paper churned out in attorney’s offices will be stored for possible litigation purposes and for other legislative reasons.

Does it have to be in paper format?

So, I would think if you asked any of the above people whether they would like a paperless office they would possible, shake their heads very firmly and say “NO! Not on my watch!”

Well it’s becoming more and more of a digital world out there and moving away from paper files and storage is becoming less and less of an option.

As with most technological advances in life there are benefits and pitfalls.

There might also be “comfort zone” issue and sometimes moving away from that is difficult.

What are the benefits of going paperless?

less storage space and storage units – you don’t have to have as much storage space for your paper files – you can store them digitally;

saves time, for example, remember when you had to search the law libraries and the like for that “one case you need” – someone has kindly put them in digital format now and you can find “that case” without leaving your office and within minutes usually too;

What are the pitfalls of going paperless?

Ermmm….

Can you think of any?

One Response to “Benefits and Pitfalls”

  1. Kathleen Kirk Eaton Reply 21. May, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    Hi Maria, a pitfall of paperless – it is probably naming documents. At our office, people just refused to follow a naming routine. Such as MED (medical) then the providers name, or IME by Dr. Who. This makes it easy to find documents, EMP (employment) LTR (letters). Then they all fall into the same place if you use the file directory in an alphabetical order which is easier to search than by date especially if you don’t know the date the document was done, saved or summarized. Not even the paralegals will follow this simple path. It makes everything so hard to find as people are naming the document, or letter, or etc as to what they will remember and ignoring the fact that other need to use the files and documents too.