The Paperless Law Office The Impossible Dream Going
The Paperless Law Office The Impossible Dream?
Going Paperless • • • Buy In from Lawyers and Staff • The Biggest Obstacle is asking lawyers and staff to “do something different. ” • Take a tip from salespeople, “sell the benefit, not the features” • Using computers to do the most repetitive parts of the job makes staff life easier, saves time • Lawyers: cost savings, practice streamlining, work from anywhere Buy-in from the Courts • Commercial courts. Supreme Court, have bought into electronic documents at trial. • Many other courts refuse to allow electronic filing of discovery/disclosure • MAG is working to bring the courts up to speed, digitize as much as possible. Buy-in from Clients and other parties • Solicitors require blue-ink signatures on original documents. Getting around this? • Institutional clients haven’t updated policies to match paperless ethic, despite sending your invoices by email.
Going Paperless • Benefits • Bytes are cheap! • • 1 page of text = ~3000 Bytes 1 page photocopy costs approx. $0. 12 1 Gigabyte data backup tape = $0. 008 1 GB of storage holds 333, 333 pages of text. • Documents available anywhere you get wi-fi • Email communication, texts, voice-to-text voicemail • Fixed storage costs, for indefinite storage
Going Paperless • And the Downside • • Technological learning curve, chasing the tech Software as service = expensive! Duplication of effort and resources where paper is still necessary Buy-in!
How do I go digital? • Make your plan • Select and budget equipment • Access resources for structuring of your data directories, back-ups, etc. • Walk through your digital workflow on every kind of law you practice • Don’t sweat the old files • Don’t try to scan and save every file. • Set a start date, after which every new file uses the digital processes • Don’t stint on hardware • Do your firm-wide training, and collect feedback
Planning – What do I need to think about? • Hardware • • Computers – will you need upgrades? Scanners Printers (yes you will still need them, sorry) Monitors Network equipment Telephone equipment including cell phones? Mac or PC? • Software • File management software • Accounting software
• Software, Cont’d • PDF Wranglers (PDF Expert, Fox. It, Adobe Acrobat) • Office suite (MS Office? Wordperfect? Open. Office? ) • Specialized practice software (Divorcemate, ACL, Lawyer Done Deal, Conveyancer) • File management • • • File name convention (very important!) Directory structure (use a directory template!) File closing policies (don’t leave those files open forever) Storage and data retention policies Template bank (letterhead, Intake forms, court forms) Backup Policy
You did your backups, right? • Backup Policy • Cloud drives • • Provides off-site backups Hardware decay not an issue Access files from anywhere Most services allow storage of your files on each workstation as well as the cloud. • On-site Storage • Network access drives • Central server • Allows work to be done when cloud backup is down • Off-Site Tape Storage
Did you do your backups? No? Better call Lawpro…. • Backups Cont’d • Allows for recovery if cloud and workstations fail (fire, virus) • Cheap storage TEST YOUR BACKUPS! Your backup policy is worth nothing if you can’t get the information back when you need it. Test this before you need it, and test it often!
Security – You’ve secured your documents… • Have a working policy to secure your data • Read your license agreements! • • Dropbox offered end-to-end encryption on cloud storage, encryption on Dropbox drives. Important to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. Prevents attacks from inside Dropbox. Terms of Service changed to permit Dropbox to harvest info from your files and provide to Third Parties, only notice was 1 change of Terms of Service Email. • ”The Cloud” is not really a cloud, it’s someone else’s hard drive. • Where is the hard drive(s)? • Is your data subject to search and seizure by foreign governments? How do you know? • Cloud providers have started offering explicit option of selecting country of choice for storage of data (Microsoft, Sync. com, Clio, Digital. Ocean). Ask for it!
Security – Behind great passwords… • Passwords • Enforce secure passwords • To write them down or not? • Writing down your password isn’t always wrong, but it does rely on the security of your physical office. • Password managers (Lastpass, 1 Password) • Can you access your employee’s passwords if you need them?
Security – but did you remember to secure… • The Security Elephant in the room…. • Email. • • Lawyers use email for everything Biggest breakthrough in efficiency gains for practices Impossible to run a modern practice without it. But…. • • Most emails travel over the internet as plain text man-in-the-middle attacks Insecure at client’s end (family, co-workers can read it) Insecure at your end (phishing attacks, malware vector, • Email is a massive security hole.
Security – Oh crap, what now? • Set up your email encryption! • • Acquire a certificate from a trusted certificate authority Turn on email encryption in your email client to “on by default” Feed your email client a tasty certificate Rest a little easier • Buy-in! • • It only really works for everyone if everyone uses it. Learn how to use it yourself, and teach your clients how to use it. Offer your public key in your. sig Preach the word to your colleagues
Typical Setup – time to go shopping! • Hardware • Two screens on every desk is a must. • Your assistants will thank you. • i. Pad/Surface/Android Tablet • Clients can sign documents on it • You can jot notes in “handwritten” form, highlight documents • Can connect to projectors for meetings, courtroom • Scanner • Small office – Fujitsu Scansnap desktop scanner – it’s fast, scans both sides in one pass • Put a scansnap on every desk • Every piece of paper goes through the scanner, then gets shredded, stored or back to client • Larger office – Xerox/Canon/Lexmark all-in-ones (look for Twain compliance)
Typical Setup – mmmmm, shopping…. • Hardware Cont’d • VOIP Telephone network – software or hardware • One phone network over multiple office sites • Conferencing equipment • Laptops • May not be necessary given modern tablet power • Smartphone • Printer (network capable) • Fax – Fax Over Internet, Fax-To-Email, fax as software service
Typical Setup – uh, nobody said there would be homework… • Software • Read your license agreements! • Practice management • Online or server based? • With accounting or without? • Accounting • Is your accounting package Trust compliant? • Are you sure? • Specialized Software? • Training! • Your software is no good if people don’t know how to use it. • Harass tech support! Your software doesn’t get better if tech support doesn’t know what’s wrong. • You are not crazy, your software should work better than it does. Demand this.
Typical Setup – hmmmm, more homework • Backups • Server/network drives • Buy server-grade equipment, not off-the-shelf stuff. • Cloud storage/processing • • • Amazon Sync. com Spyderoak Google? • Google makes their bank by trawling through your stuff and selling the data to marketers. Does this sound like a good idea for a law firm? But you’ve read your license agreements, right? • Tape Drive • • Provides local, off-site storage 7 day + 1 week rotation. 8 tapes = $800. Lawpro deductible = $2500+++
Typical Setup – And now the spy stuff… • Security • Education! • Practice. Pro has great resources. Use them. Teach them. Live and die by them. • Email encryption. In fact… • …Anything online should be encrypted, end to end. • Anti-virus • But remember, education is worth more than Norton or Mc. Affee. • Don’t forget physical security… • …including a disaster plan, a code red plan, etc. • Your computers are essentially defenceless if the attacker has physical access to them and unlimited time. Deny your attacker physical access to your computers!
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