7 reasons why law firms digitise their client matter

The creation of matters is central to a law firm’s operation - the focal point between a lawyer, his/her team and the client.  While many firms still produce paper based matter folders, this is slowly changing with the realisation that the costs associated with this method (the time spent creating and amending documents, searching for lost files, printing, transportation and storage) are high.  
As the use of electronic documents becomes much more widespread, technologies to create digital matters are becoming prevalent.  Some of these intuitive tools closely reflect how lawyers work and interact with documents.  They also integrate with other systems to give a complete overview of the client and matter.  These are just a few of the benefits.  

We have spoken to several client law firms who started the process of digitising their matters. Here is a first-hand insight into their rationale behind going digital.

1. Boosting productivity 
Employees working on a document to its completion (from scanning, sharing, reviewing, to approval…) while within an information intensive environment, deal with up to 60 documents per day.  They spend up to 5 hours a week searching for information and 2.5 hours of that on documents that are never found*. A great waste of time would you not agree? 
Searching through electronic documents is quicker and easier. The digitised search function can help recover specific documents and proves vital for those times when you require immediate answers to case related questions. Equally, electronic documents are easier to access, share, mark up and amend and shortens the document lifecycle (i.e. the process from the creation boosting overall productivity. 

2. Sharing knowledge & information
Often a team of lawyers practicing in different areas of law and in multiple office locations need to collaborate on a case, and share knowledge at all times to ensure key information is not missed. This is exactly the reason why a leading edge law firm in Australia based in 27 locations chose to go digital. 
The IT manager of the firm explains: “The firm’s greatest benefit of being local to our clients is also its greatest challenge. Thanks to our sheer size and the number of office locations we always remain close to our clients. However the challenge comes in sharing and providing our teams with complete access to information as if everyone was in the same office. Creating electronic matter files helps us overcome this”.
The electronic matter files permitted the law firm to collate all the case related documents (court hearing documents, emails, legal correspondences…) into a single, password secured electronic binder. This made it easy to organise and move complete case, but also to share them among the authorised team members.   

3. Supporting mobility
The workforce has become highly mobile. Lawyers work on their iPads and other mobile devices which gives them access to case files and information immediately. With the use of any file sharing technology, electronic folders can be shared. Lawyers no longer need to physically carry folders that are bulky, heavy and inconvenient. In essence it provides you with a library on your iPad with all the documents at your fingertip. This was another key benefit for Australian law firm mentioned above, as they use the firm’s document management system across all offices: “Our lawyers can now operate in Perth, Geelong, or Sydney and work on the same matter as if they had physically passed a complete folder between them. They will be able to attend chambers of a Barrister or court hearings without the need to drag physical binders with them and present documents to clients on devices such as the iPad or tablet.” 

4. Sharing matters with clients
In this day and age where documents are electronic, many people are used - often prefer -  to receive documents in this format.  Digitised documents and matters can be sent across electronically, with the added benefit that it saves on courier costs and that clients do not have to worry about housing huge volumes of paper files in their offices.   

5. Saving on paper costs 
Did you know that an organisation’s printing costs can amount to up to 3% of a firm’s total revenue?  We spoke to a UK based client firm with 8 regional offices and approximately 600 employees. Triggered by the changes they were making to their fleet of Multi-Function Printers, they undertook a complete review of their paper consumption. They realised that by using a scanning solutions and integrating this with a document organisation solution such as an electronic binder, they could automate tedious processes and above all, save loads of paper. 
Based on the fact that they used 3000 reams of paper. The cost of this alone is close to £112 000 per month. With the use of electronic binders, they calculated that they could save up to two thirds of this, a staggering monthly £75 000.  

6. Saving on storage costs
If you think of an office or off-site storage space as real estate, it is worth a lot of money – especially if you are based in a city. Using prime real-estate to store all your paper based folders can be an incumbent cost. You may choose to relocate to a less expensive place. But then, what about the time to look for and retrieving documents from archives? Once digitised, matter folders can be stored on the in house server and the only cost you may incur would be to add a hard drive. But no additional space cost. 

7. Approaching the paper less environment & CSR policies
Digitising documents helps hit corporate environmental targets.  Given that an average law firm prints about 10 000 pages of paper per month and 30% of this is left unclaimed at the printer or simply read and then thrown away, this has a huge environmental impact.  One of our client is looking to reduce their paper consumption by 50% to meet their CSR targets. Various strategies are implemented, one of these being the use of this digital binder technology.  By the way, if your firms look to differentiate themselves from their competitors, communicating the use of paper saving technologies such as electronic matters binders can be a value added proposition for your clients.

There are many business benefits in digitising client matter files – all of which depends on the firm’s strategic objective and what they wish to achieve. However the underlying factor is that employees are under pressure to reduce their document work cycle to a minimum and react to new/changing information quickly and effectively.  And as law firms face tougher competition, the costs, the rate of productivity and the levels of service are crucial factors in staying one step ahead.

*IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012
.

Nila Hirani [   ]

Nikec Solutions [ www.nikecsolutions.com ]

*  IDC research 2012

Nikec Binder is an electronic ring-binder to view, review, mark up and present your documents in the office or on the move. Nikec Binder collates files in a single convenient binder file. It is designed to provide the busy fee earner with the tools to allow them to view their matter in a format as similar to paper as possible. Whether it's to present pitch document, create matter bibles, know-how documents or internal training or HR documents, Nikec Binder helps you deliver a slick, flashy and user friendly electronic binder. Visit Nikec Binder page