Managing an electronic case file

I've talked to a lot of lawyers recently about disaster recovery (aka 'business continuity') issues.  As a survivor of the Katrina debacle I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to 'disaster proof' my practice.  The answer is pretty easy: (1) moblize your practice, and (2) scan all of your paperwork as it comes in or goes out.

By 'mobilize your practice' I mean, wherever possible, act like a mobile lawyer.  If you travel a lot, or work in two places often, then this will be something you're inclined to do.  If you tend to work only from you office then you'll have less motivation to 'become mobile.'  If a hurricane, earthquake, fire or terrorist attack destroys your office and all of its contents then you'll wish you'd been more motivated.  Katrina displaced 9,000 lawyers from the New Orleans area, so if you need to find some lawyers who were previously unmotivated (to their detriment) feel free to talk to any of them.

If you have a laptop computer as your primary workstation and are able to access the internet from any Wi-Fi hotspot you're well on your way to the promised land.  But, you aren't going to be able to access your client files from the Internet, not unless you scanned them and uploaded them.  Uploading them to the internet is unrealistic, but scanning them is not.  The problem for many lawyers is, not so much the scanning, but visualizing how the 'paperless file organization' system will work.  I recently gave a talk on this and created this paper that discusses how to organize your electronic case file  (from the perspective of a litigator, but transactional lawyers can easily modify the tips to suit their approach).  Hope it helps.

---Ernest

Comments

[Dave Stratton]

Ernie, great post and a great handout. Thankyou!

Have you automated the process of setting up and labeling all those subfolders? If so, how do you do it?

[Ernie]

Yes, I created a blank folder with all of those folders and subfolders. When I open a new file I just create a folder with the new file name and then go to the blank folder and copy all the 1st level folders (which, of course, will copy the sub-folders) and then I paste that into the new case folder.

[Jason Wagner]

I find the post very interesting and would like to implement it. However, I'm having some trouble accessing the PDF.

[Stewart Forbes]

I am a completely electronically challenged. Would you be kind enough to compile a list of the hard and softare needed to go completely paperless.

Thank you,
Stewart