by Bill Archambeault
Ross L. Kodner, the senior legal technologist and CEO at
MicroLaw in Milwaukee, doesn't care what law firms do with their
paper documents. The notion of eliminating all of a firm's paper
files is ludicrous, he said, if only because courts, government
agencies and other firms will always insist on using paper.
"I think the concept of the paperless office is a great lie," he
said.
Kodner just wants lawyers to rely on digital files as their
primary records system instead of paper. He recommended scanning
everything in order to have a complete file and to cut down on
confusion of what does and doesn't need to be scanned.
Wasting time looking for records is not just inefficient, it's
ethically questionable if clients are paying lawyers to waste half
an hour or an hour searching for documents when everything could be
organized in a digital filing system.
"It's not fair to pass on our inefficiencies to our clients," he
said.
Kodner highlighted certain software and equipment - like a
Fujitsu scanner that costs the same as comparable models but comes
with software for converting documents into Adobe PDFs, around a
$200 value - that would help firms large and small make the
transition.
He also pointed out mistakes he's seen firms make, like one at
which 525 letters were saved as "Letter 1," "Letter 2," and so
on.