How to Solve the Paper Records Workflow That’s Killing Your Firm
In DocSolid’s 2016 IG-Records Survey, it was found that 57% of a firm’s formally-filed paper documents were printed directly from the firm’s own paperless document management system. That percentage would grow another 39% if you gathered up all the other DMS-printed paper that is scattered around the firm — on lawyers’ desks, in secretary workstations, and in hallway boxes.
So, if we already have these documents properly stored in the DMS, why do we print, file, store, and archive them as paper?
To start, we print because many attorneys like to work with paper. That is why almost all law firms still run enormous paper filing operations. We keep filing, refiling, moving, and storing DMS-printed paper documents because the filing staff, and even the attorney, aren’t sure if the corresponding electronic version is in the DMS. The paper is filed, and the print-file-store-archive cycle continues.