The Paper-less Practice of Law in BC

Our good friend David Bilinsky is the Practice Management Advisor and staff lawyer for the Law Society of British Columbia.  His will also be one of the plenary speakers for Strategic Solutions for Solo and Small Firms and the author of the Thoughtful Legal Management blog.  Though the specific references are meant for BC, the general principles of David's recent post on the reasons to go paperless are universal.:

By David Bilinsky

?  Go ahead and rip up, rip up the paper
Go ahead and tear up, tear up the paper…?

Lyrics and music by David Byrne, recorded by Talking Heads.

There are many reasons for taking a law practice towards a paper-less (or digital) workflow implementation.

For one, you are reducing the volume of files and paper that you have to purchase, print, handle, store and eventually, destroy.

Two, you are able to search and find documents quicker and easier if all documents are in digital (searchable) form.

Three, as government registries and courts come on-line, you can create, sign (digitally), file and send documents in electronic form.

Four, you can not only send documents to clients and others electronically, but you can also create extranets, which are private areas on the web created for specific projects - for a litigation file, for a specific closing or for all files related to a specific client.

Five, we have seen war rooms created on the web where one client (ie a corporate defendant) can host common documents, briefs, pleadings etc that relate to related litigation being undertaken in disparate jurisdictions. These war rooms can save substantial dollars by eliminating the need to continually recreate the wheel.

Six, law firms scan and transmit incoming paper documents, allowing the firm to bring into their electronic filing system all paper-based correspondence.

Of course there are many others, but this is just a taste of where implementing the digitalization of paper can take a law practice.

For the rest of David's article:  The Paper-less Practice of Law in BC.

- Peter H. Berge