PDF for Lawyers

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A mobile lawyer is a paperless lawyer

Whenever I talk to lawyers about switching to a digital workflow system I always get the same question: what's the best way to switch? The answer: all at once. Next question. What's the second best way?

Ah, excellent question. And the answer is: just work on becoming a mobile lawyer. The more mobile you are the less dependent on paper you'll become (after all you aren't going to be very mobile if you have to drag tons of paper around with you). I was pretty mobile before Katrina pushed me into that extreme form of mobility known as nomadism. But Katrina was good because it forced me to think more deeply about how to diminish my reliance on paper, and anything else that would keep me tethered to a specific location.

One thing that is hard to escape from is your physical mailing address. You pretty much have to have one, and that means your mail will go to that location. And then you have to figure out how to retrieve it from a distant place. Wouldn't it be nice if you could have your mail sent to a place that scanned it and sent it to you by email? Well, turns out there is such a place. It's called Earth Class Mail.

You have to choose to have mail delivered to one of 18 regional P.O. centers. For about $10 per month they'll scan up to 35 envelopes and email you the image. You then decide if you want them to shred the envelope and its contents, or open it and scan the paper. You get up to 50 pages scanned for the $10 monthly fee and then pay .25 per page after that. There is a corporate package, and soon they will be adding the ability to electronically cash checks.

Obviously, this is not worthwhile for the average person. But if you are on a long trip, or if you don't plan to spend time in any one place for very long this is the way to get your paper mail.

Paperless depositions

I don't use paper in depositions.  If I'm taking the deposition I cheerfully agree to have the deposition held in my opponent's office, asking him or her to make sure to have the case documents available and organized by bates-number.   If you can't count on an attorney to have lots of paper what can you count on?

I have my deposition notes set up in an outline on my computer.  When I get to a place that calls for me to talk about a certain document I inform my opposing counsel what the document bates-number is, and ask him to show it to the witness.  I have all the documents bookmarked in Acrobat.  It takes me about 3 seconds to get to the document, and I make good use of the time it takes my opponent to pull the document and show it to the witness.  I have notes superimposed on the PDF and I examine those and get ready to frame my questions.  At the end of the deposition I don't offer any documents as exhibits.  If opposing counsel asks me why I'm not doing that I tell him that the bates-numbers (which I announced on the record before starting my questions about each document) constitute sufficient reference.

If I'm attending a deposition it's even easier.  When a document is offered I ask what the bates-number is and I just pull it up, much more quickly than if I were to wait for it to be handed over.  Plus I have my PDF notes superimposed on my copy which helps me quickly figure out the relevance of the document to my theory of the case.   And of course I can add more notes on the fly if I want to.  I also bookmark the document and indent it under a main bookmark labelled for the deposition in question.  So when the deposition is over I have a listing of all the documents that were referenced in that meeting.

It's not as high-tech as this paperless deposition system, but it doesn't need to be.  Often the best solution is the simplest one, and I think that's true for Adobe Acrobat.  It does a lot of things pretty darn well, and since I use it all the time I'm very familiar with its organization.  Next time you take a deposition consider how much smoother it could be if you didn't have to deal with paper. 

Of course, if you have a deposition like this one it wouldn't matter.

Digital Workflow - Backup online (forget CD-ROMs)

As you transition to a digital workflow you'll begin to appreciate the value of having all of your data in an easily transportable and easily accessible form.  The first question I usually get when I explain to people the benefits of converting all of their paper to digital form is: "what happens if my digital data gets destroyed?"

First, paper is a lot easier to destroy than digital data but that's a topic for another post. You obviously do want to take steps to protect your digital data. For a long time backup systems were hard to use.  The proper protocol always calls for the backup to be stored 'offsite,' somewhere far from the original.  It doesn't do any good to have a backup in the office when it catches fire, right?

Online backup promises to solve the 'offsite' issue, but for years it was too expensive, or too hard to pull off.  But now, it's gotten to the point where it's very affordable and --frankly-- it's the best choice.  A company called Mozy offers a great solution that I highly recommend.  You can store up to 2 GBs on their system for FREE!  Their system works with Macs and PCs.  If you want to store more than 2 GBs (and most people will) then you can get the basic system for only $4.95 per month.

I don't know about you, but I think that $60 per year for unlimited online backup is ridiculously cheap.  If you are going to scan your documents and throw away the original paper then you'll need a backup system.

Going paperless at home

The New York Times has an interesting article about the mounting trend of people digitizing their home information. Over at the Lifehacker blog the editors have asked their readers how far they've come in digitizing their home information. Some interesting comments there, and I encourage those of you who are interested in the "Paperless Evolution" to read those comments or add your own.

But I don't want to scan my yellow pad...

Many lawyers have a legal pad dedicated to each client file, as opposed to using one pad to record notes from all matters.   But if you gravitate toward a paperless work flow then you need to electronically capture all of these notes. Sure, you could use a scanner. That's obvious.  But maybe the scanner seems like a hassle for some reason.  Are there any other options?

Well consider this: with Acrobat it's easy to import pictures into a pdf document.  So if you have a decent camera phone (e.g., greater than 1 megapixels) or an old digital camera sitting in a drawer, then an alternate solution may be close at hand.  At the end of the day take a picture of each page of your notepad, and then later import the pictures in the PDF file for the appropriate case (presumably one called "Attorney Notes").  Or email them to your secretary and have her do it. Or just dump the .jpgs into an Attorney notes folder named by date.  There are lots of variations that you can work out for yourself.

You can use this trick for magazine articles, whiteboard sessions, or other chunks of information that are not easily scanned.  In fact, some people use their camera phones to take pictures of things that they want to be reminded of  later (e.g. window shopping ideas etc.).  The point is that your cameraphone or digital camera can be part of your digital workflow too.  If you want it to, that is.

Digital workflow for lawyers

I'll be speaking to the Lawyers Computer Group on 'Digital Workflow' in a couple of weeks.  The talk is about about using scanners and Adobe Acrobat to streamline your law practice (so you don't feel like this poor guy).

The presentation is at noon on February 13th in the Pan-American Life Bldg, downtown New Orleans.  To register contact Michael Goldblatt at 504-841-0900, or by email (michaelgoldblatt[at]aol.com).  The registration fee is $15.

The written materials are pretty spare; I'll be posting links relevant to the talk here.  I think you have to register by February 8th if you want a spot.  Hope to see some of you there.

Develop a paperless workflow - Part 3

Anticipating this post, a reader asked after reading Part 1, "how do you organize documents once they are scanned? By folders? Using document management software?"  Excellent question.  The question of how to organize digital documents deserves a lot of thought.  Many people intuitively opt for document management software, only to learn later on that the better solution was the 'counter-intuitive' one.

What's wrong with document management systems?
Nothing, per se.  A better question to ask is 'what's right about them?'  But the best question to ask is 'what are the trade-offs with using a DMS as opposed to the native file system built into my computer operating system?'  A DMS is a piece of software that creates an interface (which can in some situations become a barrier) between you and the native files. 

Let's say you scan your documents into PDF format and store them in a folder named for the case they are related to.  Only two things have to be working properly for you to access that file: (1) your computer and its operating system, and (2) the Adobe program (either Reader or Acrobat).  If you have a DMS then that program also has to be working properly.  If it's not, then you can't access your documents.

So is the trade-off of paying for additional software, which requires upgrades and periodic maintenance, worth the marginal benefit of having a 'plug-and-play' organization system?  I think that for solo lawyers and small firms the answer is no.  At some point, of course, a firm has so many attorneys and staff that the trade-off becomes worthwhile.  Personally, I'd resist the temptation to use a firm-wide DMS system and pay for outsourced hosting only in the large cases that require it.  I think there is simply no need to use anything other than the basic file organization system that is inherent in any computer operating system.

Folders?  And how many?
I have tended to use electronic folders that more or less mirror what I would use in a paper-based world.  I have a 'pleadings folder' and a 'discovery folder' and a 'documents folder' and a 'correspondence folder and so on.  I found that this was cumbersome in many cases, but I kept doing it. 

Then one day I was having lunch with a good lawyer friend who is completely paperless, and he told me that he doesn't use folders hardly at all.  He dumps everything into one or two or three sub-folders.  I have experimented with this system and I find that it works great when cases are starting out. After that, it depends on the size of the case and the needs of the case.  But, the good thing is that it's fairly easy to create more folders as you need them and shift your documents around if you have to.

Flexibility is important when dealing with electronic documents.  And that's another reason that I don't like committing to a DMS.  Once those documents are organized into a DMS there is no easy way to reorganize them. 

File-naming convention is important
If you're going to use the native operating system to organize your electronic files, then the naming convention you adopt will make a big difference.  Let's use correspondence as the first example.  With correspondence you want to organize it chronologically, right?  So all you have to do is name the files starting with a 4 digit year, then 2 digit month and then 2 digit date, followed by a brief description.

Example: 2007_01_09 Svenson ltr to Abercrombie

I could substitute a dash for the underscore, but whichever approach I use it should be uniform in all cases.  In other words, how you store the files isn't as important as what you name them.  And once you settle on a convention you'll be stuck with it.  It bears repeating, the key is to make it so you can look in a folder and find all your correspondence neatly sorted by date.

My approach is to make the brief description of correspondence have sender first, then type of correspondence (e.g. ltr, email, fax), and then recipient.  I don't think it matters much if you spell out the complete last name of the sender/recipient.  What matters is that there is enough information for someone to find what they're looking for in most cases.  If you adopt a practice of OCR'ing your electronic documents you'll be able to find them based on what's in them in addition to what they're named.

For pleadings I use the convention of naming by order of filing and then a description.

Example: Doc 001 Complaint, Doc 002 Summons, Doc 003 Return on Summons, Doc 004 Req for Time to respond, etc.

In federal courts, the docket clerks designate a document with a document number so my practice is to match my number to theirs.  And the nice thing about doing this is that, if I look in the folder and see that a document number is missing, then I know that I'm missing a pleading I should have.  I know that not all states stamp pleadings with a document number, but I figure that if the federal courts do it then that will be the predominant practice (and most states will eventually adopt it).

As for naming other types of documents, you can be flexible. I would put discovery documents in a separate folder from the general file correspondence.  As I said, you can adapt to your own purpose and that's the nice thing about using the basic file system of your computer instead of a DMS.

Develop a paperless workflow - Part 2

Once you've decided to create a paperless environment, there are a couple of things to consider.  First, you will not likely eliminate all paper from your environment.  The goal (at least initially) is simply to capture all paper, incoming or outgoing, and convert it to a digital form.  This is very important, and it bears repeating.  You must capture all (not just some) incoming and outgoing (yes, outgoing too!) paper.  The best time to capture the paper is when it first comes in, or when it is first being sent out.

If you work in an office with other lawyers (who may not be as inclined as you to make the switch to a paperless world) then it's important to start with a workflow model that at least captures everything into a digital form.  Later on, as the other lawyers buy-in to the digital workflow model it will be easier for them to grasp the benefits of being digital if most of their stuff has already been digitized.

Also, make sure that you have sufficient printing capacity to print out large digital files that you want to work with in paper format.  Eventually, you'll learn to work with digital files and become less reliant on paper.  But, at first, you may find yourself wanting to work with paper.  If you can't output it quickly then your tendency will be to retreat back into the analog world. 

The key to making the switch to digital is to make the firm commitment to capture all incoming and outgoing paper.  All of it.  No exceptions. Not one.

If you can do this then you'll will have achieved escape velocity, and will have slipped the surly (and insidious) bonds of paper.  And soon you will find yourself in a weightless and stress-free atmosphere, wondering why you didn't make this change long ago.

Oh, and did I mention that you have to capture all of the paper?

Develop a paperless workflow - How to do it.

The problem with making the transition to a paperless world is not lack of technology.  Scanners are cheap and so is the software that is needed to use them.  The problem is moving from the familiar world of paper to an unfamiliar one, devoid of paper.  What people need most is a blueprint for paperless workflow.

First, let me reassure those who believe that they could never feel comfortable making a sudden shift to a world completely devoid of paper.  I still use paper, although not very much.  The point isn't to eliminate all paper right off the bat, but rather to develop a system that doesn't depend on paper.  In the next few posts we'll cover the strategies for doing this.  But, for now let's begin with what happens when you scan a document.

After you run the document through your scanner you'll want to name the document and store it somewhere.  We'll address this next time, but for now the question is: what do you do with the piece of paper that you have scanned after you have properly saved it to your computer?

Generally speaking, I throw the paper away since the best thing about scanning is that it eliminates the need to keep the paper (your digital file will be backed up so there is much less fear of losing the electronic version than the paper version).  But, at first, you may incline towards keeping the paper.  Perhaps the paper has information you need to access for a call you're about to make, and it's easier to have it handy in paper form while you make the call.  Maybe you're just hesitant to get rid of the paper for the moment.  Fine.  But you'll need to do at least one thing.

Write something on the paper you just scanned indicating you've already scanned it.  That way, you'll know that it's in your electronic system and you don't need to scan it again.  Even if you think you'll remember that you scanned it, you should adopt this practice because if you work with other people you'll need a system that lets everyone know the paper was scanned.  So what do you write?

One option is to simply write "scanned" on the top right corner.  Another option is to write the file name of the document --in case you need to retrieve the electronic version quickly for some reason.  For example, you might decide to email the document to someone after your phone call and having the document name will let you quickly access the electronic version of the document.  In any case, adopt a system that (1) eliminates scanned paper, or (2) flags the paper as having been scanned, including any other information that might be useful while the paper is still being used.

And remember to toss the paper as soon as you don't need it.  If you don't start purging paper from your desk you'll never realize the full benefits of scanning.  After a few weeks you'll start to notice little things about how you used to deal with paper.  Mostly, you'll learn that people hoard too much paper, keeping it close by in case they need to access information.  Soon you'll notice that having too much paper around you makes it harder to find information, not easier.  The less paper you have around you the less stress you'll feel, especially once you learn to trust the paperless system.

Be more efficient: scan your signature into your form letters

No one should print out a letter to sign it unless it's absolutely necessary. For example, if you plan to send a letter to someone by email then you should have your signature already included in your form letter. That way you can create a PDF and email it without ever printing it out. Even if you do print out letters, having your signature scanned in and loaded into your standard form of letter can save lots of time. Here's a good article on how to scan in your signature.

Fujitsu ScanSnap now comes with Acrobat 8.0 Professional

If you own a Mac and want to buy the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, you are very fortunate.  Apparently, as this Macworld article mentions, the Fujitsu S510M comes bundled with Acrobat 8.0 Professional.  The Windows version only comes with Acrobat 8.0 Standard.  You can get the scanner here for $399.00 (after $50 rebate).  The retain value of Acrobat Professional alone is about $400, which means you essentially get the scanner for free.  Or the software.  Or both at half price.

Anyway you slice it, it's an amazing deal.  For Mac-users at least.

PDF workflow in law schools

PDFs seem to be underutilized in the legal profession.  But while lawyers are not flocking to PDFs in the way that they should, perhaps law students will start the trend.  One way this might happen is if the students start using a product called ecasebriefs, which provides digital briefs (e.g. PDF files) of cases in popular legal text books.

Let's say you are taking Civil Procedure and the professor has assigned Friedenthal, Miller, Sexton & Hershkoff as your textbook.  For $27 a student can download a PDF set of all the cases in the textbook, highlighted and with commentary balloon notes inserted by attorneys.  Since most law students have laptop computers these days this product can be a great convenience.  And law students love to buy stuff like this, or at least they did when I was in law school.

Ecasebriefs has PDF briefs for every legal textbook used in the core curriculum of law schools, and I'm betting that with low printing costs (PDF) and cheap distribution (Internet), the company will be aroudn for a long while.

I haven't seen the product firsthand, but from looking at the screenshot it seems like someone might be able to avoid buying the more expensive textbook by getting this product. In any event, the ecasebrief has a number of useful features that printed textbooks can't offer.  And if the student had the full version of Acrobat they could add their own notes and highlighting on top of the pooped out notes by the ecasebrief authors.  If many law students get used to using PDFs as part of their workflow then it will be a lot more natural for them to use PDFs in their workflow when they practice law.

Scanning is joyful

Many thanks to young Alex McGillvary, who says he was inspired by us to start his home scanning project (link is dead now for some reason) .  See, people, it can be done!  It just takes commitment (and the right tools).  So what are you waiting for?

Controversy over the "Send to FedEx" feature in Acrobat

Last week we reported on the "Send to FedEx/Kinkos" function in Acrobat 8.1.  Now it appears that, because of complaints by printing organizations, Adobe and FedEx will no longer partner to offer this feature.  In October, when Adobe releases new versions of Acrobat and Reader, the 'Send to FedEx/Kinkos" link will be removed, although a separate version of Reader will be available from FedEx that will contain this functionality.  Hopefully, FedEx/Kinkos will also create a plug-in for Acrobat that enables the "Send to" feature.

"Send to FedEx/Kinkos" from within Acrobat

I just noticed that in Acrobat 8.1 (I have the Mac version, but it works with Windows too) I have the choice while viewing a PDF to "send the document to FedEx/Kinkos" for printing.  I have a FedEx/Kinkos about 5 minutes away from my house.  Sometimes I when I've needed to print out large document sets for discovery production, and the most effective way to accomplish this was to go to FedEx/Kinkos store.

Now I don't have to get in my car to submit my job.  I can just use the handy "send to FedEx Kinkos" option from within Acrobat.  How does it work?

Once your document has been uploaded your browser will be directed to the FedEx/Kinko's webpage where you can set print options, preview your document, select pickup and delivery options, and pay (of course).  The file size limit is 100 MBs, and it only works in version 8.1 of Acrobat.  They'll even ship the job to whomever you designate when the job is complete. Orders without special instructions take a minimum of 4 hours to produce, and orders with special instructions take a minimum of 10 hours to produce.

More Information: FedEx/Kinkos Webpage Explanation
                                   FedEx/Kinks FAQ Page

UPDATE:  It appears that, because of complaints by printing organizations, Adobe and FedEx will no longer partner to offer this easy solution.  In October, when Adobe releases new versions of Acrobat and Reader, the 'Send to FedEx/Kinkos" link will be removed, although a separate version of Reader will be available from FedEx that will contain this functionality.

Upcoming seminar on Acrobat - How to create forms

Rick Borstein and Mark Middleton putting on a free online seminar what will demonstrate the best ways of creating and using PDF Forms in the legal world.   The one hour seminar will focus on Acrobat 8, but most of the features will also work in Acrobat 7.  For more information about this August 9th event click here.

Civil Subpoena Form for Federal Court

If you need to fill out a subpoena form for use in a federal court proceeding, feel free to use this one.  I found it by simply searching online.  It has form fields, and even includes a place for a digital signature.  As much as I love digital signatures, I wouldn't use the digital signature in most cases because it looks strange to most people. 

Proving PDF documents in court

Dunno if this is helpful, but someone asked this question on Google Answers and here is the resulting response.

Scanning & OCR

Rick Borstein, who runs the Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog, has a great article on scanning and OCR with Acrobat 8.  The article appears at the equally wonderful LLRX.com site (run by Sabrina Pacifici).  Rick is extremely knowledgeable and his article is a must-read if you are interested in scanning.

Hey, mind if I keep paperless records?

With the onset of hurricane season the IRS posted this blurb about safekeeping of your important records (note the paragraph with the heading "Paperless Recordkeeping."  Here is what the IRS says:

"Many people now receive bank statements and documents by e-mail or over the Web. Paper records such as W-2s, tax returns and other documents can be scanned into an electronic format. With documents in electronic form, taxpayers can copy them onto a USB drive as a backup, which can be sent to a relative in another city for safe-keeping in case the taxpayer’s computer and paper files are destroyed.

Other options include copying files onto a CD or DVD. Many retail stores also sell computer software packages that can be used for recordkeeping."

The IRS generally does not require records to be kept in a particular manner, so scanned records will usually be acceptable (as will information kept in financial programs such as Quicken).  For more detailed information about IRS requirements, see Publication 552 - Recordingkeeping for Individuals and Publication 583 - Starting a Business and Keeping Records.

And what about attorneys?  Can they keep their client records in paperless format?  Well, it depends.  For the most part, the answer is yes (with the exception of original wills, promissory notes or other things that a lawyer may reasonably be expected to preserve in its original form).  For more overview check out this ABA article that was written about 2 years ago.   Obviously, more attorneys are going to want to keep their old client files in digital form, and my guess is that it will be permitted (with some obvious exceptions).  After all, keeping paper files has proven to be very problematic in disasters such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Article on going paperLESS

Here's a very interesting article by Grant Griffiths on the virtues of "going PaperLESS" and the methodology behind it.  Grant is a Mac-using solo practitioner in Kansas, and has an excellent blog called The Home Office Lawyer.  As I can personally attest, working from a home office forces you to be super-efficient and cost-conscious.  The methods that Grant advocates can work on a larger scale too, but at some point you have to switch methodologies.  But, still, there is no reason why every organization shouldn't be finding ways to eliminate, or more efficiently process, paper.

(Hat tip to Dennis Kennedy for alerting me to this article).

Bates-Stamping Documents the easy way

Whenever I see a set of documents that has been bates-stamped by hand, I cringe.  The only place that one should be able to see that kind of thing is in a museum.  And, yet amazingly, you can see it any day of the week in a typical law practice.  What's so bad about bates-stamping documents by hand?

First, it's mind-numbingly tedious work.  Which means that the poor paralegal that has been assigned to do it is probably going to make a mistake.  Most importantly, it takes a really long time to do it by hand.  Frankly, if I was a corporate client I would add a section to my standard terms of representation stating that I refuse to pay for paralegal time associated with bates-stamping.

Let's say you have 1,000 documents to bates-stamp.  I seriously doubt that any paralegal could finish the task in less than 4 hours.  It would probably take at least a day, maybe more.  But to scan those documents would only take about an hour, maybe two hours if you had a really slow scanner.  Once you've scanned the documents it takes about 30 seconds to bates-stamp them using Acrobat 8.0.   

Using a computer to bates-stamp ensures that you don't miss any pages.  And you can tell Acrobat to shrink the borders of the page and apply the bates-stamp in the resulting white area.  This guarantees that the bates-number on every page is visible.  Also you can add text before or after the bates number, (e.g. as "2nd Production - No. 000345").  Finally, if you realize you made a mistake and included some pages that should not have been bates-stamped, you can remove the bates-stamping and start over.

So all you have to do is scan the documents first.  And this is a good thing.  Because, as an added bonus, you have not only bates-stamped your documents, but now you have them in digital form.  Then if you want to make the documents searchable (and, trust me, you want to do this) you can OCR them first.   Let me emphasize this point: OCR before you bates-stamp the documents.  Otherwise, for reasons I won't get into, you won't be able to OCR the documents later (but, as I said, you can remove the bates-stamping, OCR, and then bates again). 

In short, there's a smart way to bates-stamp documents, and a really stupid way. Why anyone would want to make someone bates-stamp documents by hand is beyond me.  Frankly, I think it should be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment.  Apparently, though, it's not all that unusual. 

And that is really sad.

Digital file organization - Part 2

Last week I talked about Digital File Organization, and suggested that you use folders and sub-folders that mirror the paper based system you are currently using.  Now let's talk about digital file-naming conventions. 

First, if you work in a big law firm or company you probably have a document management system, or DMS.  And,if you do, then that system will provide file names and will keep track of the file locations.  All you have to do is 'profile' the document, which means fill out some key information such as the client name and number and the matter number (and perhaps some other information too).  If you work with a DMS then you are constrained to use its system, and that's fine. 

If you aren't using a DMS then you have to name your electronic files.  I suggest you follow this convention: start with the four digit year, then underscore, then two digit month, then underscore, then two digit date.  Like this: 2007_04_16.

Then follow that up with a space and then some brief description of the document (e.g. 2007_04_16 Letter to President Bush abt Iraq War).  The reason to use this format is that it will automatically sort the documents chronologically in whatever folder you place them.  This is especially good for documents in a correspondence folder since you generally want your correspondence to be organized chronologically (or in reverse chronological order).  If the correspondence folder gets to jammed up then simply use the Acrobat feature that lets you combine multiple files into one PDF.  When you do this you will find that in the resulting PDF all of the individual files have been bookmarked so you know where each separate document is.  I recommend combining correspondence into PDFs by year, but that's up to you.

This is a simple system, but therein lies its power. Obviously a full-fledged DMS system is necessary for firms of a certain size.  But I also think that most firms that have DMS systems don't really make full use of their power.  And yet they are stuck with a system that requires regular upgrades, and which must at all times be compatible with the current computer operating system and word processing document programs.  The advantage of the system I describe is that it doesn't create any compatibility issues because it uses the native organizing method of your computer operating system.

Sometimes simpler and smaller is better.  But, whatever system you decide to use, think hard about what you are trying to accomplish and how to best accomplish it.  Have a plan and stick to it, but don't be afraid to change it if you aren't getting optimum results.

P.S. in the example above with the date, you could also make the date 2007-04-16 (which uses dashes instead of underscoring). That's fine.  But don't do some documents with underscoring and some with dashes because the computer will treat them a bit differently and you won't get true chronological sorting.  In other words, be consistent.

Digital file organization - Part 1

The biggest challenge in making the transition to a paperless office (and, yes it's possible to be completely paperless, although at first you may have to wear an oxygen mask) is creating a new filing system.  The nicest thing about a paper-based filing system is that you don't have to think about it much, or spend much time teaching people how to do it.

You won't have to spend much time thinking about how to do a paperless file system, either. But you will have to think a little bit more than you are now.  Most concepts you are just going to copy-and-paste from the paper world.

Let's say you have a litigation practice and so when you open a file you have the following sub-files (or folders): 1) Pleadings, 2) Correspondence 3) Transcripts 4) Documents etc.  All you have to do is create a model folder called "Client File Form" and then put in all the typical sub-folders you generally use.  In fact, put in every sub-folder you might conceivably want to use.

Then when you open a new file you just make a copy of the model folder (which will make a copy of all the sub-folders too) and then rename it.  From now on whenever you get a piece of correspondence, documents or pleadings just put them in the appropriate client folder.

And this principle applies to pretty much everything, including paper that comes into your home.  If you scan your monthly bills you can create a folder called "Monthly Bills."  Then make another one for "Insurance documents" or whatever you have a filing system for now.  I wouldn't get too caught up in making lots of separate folders, but that's up to you.  If you have Adobe Acrobat you can always merge separate files together at the end of the year.  In other words, you can combine all twelve of your monthly statements from your power company and label the new file, say, "Con-Edison 2007."

The key is to process your digital information in a way that's fast and easy, and yet which dovetails into processing that you might want to do later on.

Next time we'll cover file-naming conventions, which is important for many reasons.

Markup PDFs without Acrobat

Marking up and manipulating PDFs is easy if you have Adobe Acrobat.  The Standard version costs a couple of hundred dollars, which I believe is worth it.  But, then, I use it a lot. If you have an Apple computer and want to explore some lower priced alternatives that are pretty good (but not as full-featured as Acrobat), check out this comprehensive article over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog which talks about two low cost products.   TUAW followed up that article with a short blurb about a tool called Skim, which is totally free.

With E-filing the file-size matters

Today I had the opportunity to talk with the Deputy Clerk of one of the federal courts in Louisiana about e-filing.  All of our federal trial courts now have e-filing, and the Eastern District announced mandatory e-filing effective the beginning of this year.  Even though e-filing was just introduced in the EDLA in April of last year, already 60% of the filings in active cases are being done electronically.

One interesting thing that I learned was that apparently a lot of lawyers are still creating their PDFs by scanning them, instead of simply 'capturing the text' as a print file and doing the conversion that way.  I asked the Deputy Clerk why this was happening.  He said that probably a lot of lawyers like to see their signature on the document so when they create a pleading to be filed electronically they follow this process:

1. Print out word processing document
2. Physically sign the last page where the signature line is
3. Scan the document back in to create a PDF
4. Upload the resulting PDF into the e-filing system

This is not optimal, and can actually lead to problems.  In fact, about two hours after talking to the Deputy Clerk I got a call from an attorney who wanted me to help him with an e-filing problem he was having with a court outside of Louisiana.  His problem, as it turned out, was caused by creating a PDF via scanning.

The problem with creating a PDF via scanning (as opposed to 'text capture') is that it creates a PDF that has a larger file size.  My attorney friend not only was scanning his documents, but also had the scanner set to create a 'grayscale' file, instead of a black and white file.  When I say 'he' had the scanner set to grayscale I really mean 'his IT department' had it set that way.  Most attorneys don't want (and shouldn't have) to bother with stuff like scanner settings.

The problem that he encountered as he tried to file his bloated PDF was that it exceeded the 2 MB file size limit that his court imposed.  Two of the documents that he was trying to file were simple 4 page affidavits.  When I looked at them each one was over 2 MBs in size.  That's WAY too big!

So, if you're stuck on the idea of scanning then make sure that you (or your IT department) sets the scanner you will be using to the following settings: 200 to 300 dpi (no greater), and black & white (not grayscale, and DEFINITELY not color).  One problem with making this the default setting is that many law firms now use large copy machines that double as scanners (e.g. an HP digital sender that emails the recipient a PDF through the firm's network).  Some of the people who use that copier from time to time are going to WANT color PDFs, or even grayscale. So there may be a fight about what the default setting should be.  And the default setting may not be easily changed on some of those machines.

The best solution to this situation is to learn how to simply convert your Word or Wordperfect files to PDF.  The latest versions of these programs, I think, allow the creation of PDF documents.  If you don't have a word processing program that is natively capable of creating PDFs there are free programs like CutePDF that allow you to create them easily (basically by creating a 'virtual printer' that you select so that the output, instead of being paper, is a PDF file).  The best way is to by a full copy of Acrobat (approx: $299), which may seem expensive until you botch a last minute e-filing and wind up spending five times what the program costs trying to make your document conform to the technical requirements of the court's computer system.

Remember, you don't need to affix your actual scrawly signature to a piece of paper in order to 'sign' your pleading.  The courts that allow e-filing presume that a slash followed by your typewritten name is sufficient to constitute a 'signature.'  Actually, though, the authentication aspect of your signature is accomplished by virtue of your login when you file.  A password protected login is, in the world of computers, the (vastly superior) equivalent of your unreadable scrawl.  But, for some reason, this simple concept eludes even the most brilliant lawyers.

One last observation: for some documents you are going to have to scan them to create a PDF.  For example, the affidavits that my friend needed were not going to be simply 'captured' from a word processing document because the affiant actually needed to sign the document.  So, in that case, it would be necessary to know how to create a PDF by scanning it.

Reducing paper in your law firm

Here is an excellent article by Legal Tech Consultant Ross Kodner on diminishing the onslaught of paper in a law firm, mostly by scanning it to PDF.

Getting information to come to you automatically

Google alerts is a great tool for keeping up with breaking news about corporate clients.  All you have to do is go to go to the Google alerts page and set up a search string and then specify how often you want to be notified (i.e. once a day, as it happens, or once a week).  Then Google will send you an email however often you specified, if there is news about your client.  You can also specify where Google is to search for the requested information: Google news, web, news+web, or Google discussion groups.

If you prefer, you can use an RSS reader in conjunction with Google to keep track of this information as well.  And, it goes almost without saying that this tool can be used for more than just keeping up with client happenings (e.g. journalists are using it extensively).  If you are interested, here is the Google page that describes Google alerts.

Example of paperless workflow involving faxes

The other day I got a fax from my local bar association asking me to confirm by way of a return fax that I would be attending a committee meeting.  It would have been more efficient if they had simply asked me to send a response email, but we'll get to that later.   The workflow process that I used to respond to the fax illustrates a couple of great features in Acrobat.  It also shows how most workflow problems can be handled without any paper whatsoever.

The fax from the Louisiana State Bar Association showed up in my email box.  That's because I use a service called eFax, which gives me a local number to which faxes can be sent.  But the faxes show up as emails, so I don't have to have a fax machine and worry about all the things that can go wrong with a machine.  I don't worry about whether if my fax thing has paper, and I don't worry if my phone line is working.  The faxes arrive safely every time at the eFax center, and then they are forwarded to me.

The fax arrives as a PDF attachment to the email.  All I have to do is download the attachment and open it in Acrobat.  When I opened the fax I saw that it was a notification of a committee meeting.  The second page of the fax was a response form that asked me to check off if I was planning to attend and then return the form by fax. 

I used Acrobat's "Extract" feature to make a copy of just the second page, the one with the response form.  Then I used the "typewriter" feature to put an X in the box that indicated I would attend the meeting in person.  There was a signature line at the bottom.  So I clicked the 'signature' button on the Acrobat toolbar and went through the steps to 'digitally sign' the document.  I saved the changes to the file and then logged on to the eFax site where I uploaded the file, directing it to be faxed to the bar association. 

I'm sure I was the only committee member to return a response without ever touching a piece of paper (for which will receive some 'style points,' at best).  Maybe it would have been faster to print out the fax, sign it and send it back in.  But I don't have a physical fax machine.  Of course, as I said, it the most efficient method would have been to have the committee members reply by email.  Perhaps I'll mention that at the meeting.  It would be sort of ironic because the committee is called the "Practice Assistance and Improvement Committee."

Oh, and I should mention that I did all of this with my laptop at a coffee shop that has wireless internet.   How's that for paperless workflow?

The Key to a Paperless Law Office

Over at the South Carolina Law Blog (hosted by Dave Swanner), guess-author John Powers shares his tips on creating a paperless office.  John's firm has been paperless for 3 years now so his suggestions are well-worth considering, especially his recommendation that you get a quality scanner.  I've used the Canon 2080C and can vouch for its reliability and ease of use.  I haven't used TrialWorks, but it sounds like a worthwhile investment.

Scanning Workflow Tip

I have been using the Fujitsu ScanSnap (Mac Version) for several months now. Since I started my own law practice I've been using it even more, and I've had to make some adjustments that I think are worth sharing. I assume that most of this will be applicable to folks who don't have the ScanSnap.

I now scan every piece of mail and paper (other than junk) that comes in. I have my ScanSnap attached to a desktop computer (an iMac), which is convenient because laptops tend to require you to go through extra steps (plugging in, finding a good spot to scan etc). I created a folder in the 'My Documents' folder called "Scanned 2006" and this is the default folder that everything gets scanned into (well, almost everything as we shall discuss below). When I have something that I want to scan I just put the paper in the scanner and push the button and it scans to the 'Scanned 2006' folder (and next year it will be to the, you guessed it, 'Scanned 2007' folder). Incidentally, the ScanSnap creates a file name based on the date the document was scanned. So just a few minutes ago I scanned a document that had this name created by the scanner "2006_06_19_15_35_04". Those extra digits are randomly generated to create uniqueness in case other documents are scanned that same day (which is likely).

As a result of this process I have one folder that has a chronological grouping of (almost) all the documents I've scanned. The only ones I don't scan into that folder are document productions in cases that I'm working on. I don't need those large files cluttering up my special folder. The thing that's special about this folder is that it's sort of a 'Reader File.' Some of you who work in offices may have a secretary who keeps a special folder with a copy of all your incoming or outgoing correspondence; this is what I refer to as a 'Reader File.'

So, you've got all of your routine correspondence going into the 'Reader Folder' if you will. Now you have to put a copy in whatever folder it belongs in based on its category. ScanSnap automatically pulls up Acrobat (or whatever application you've told it to use to scan to, and you should use Acrobat. After all, it comes free with the ScanSnap). So what happens when we see the document after its scanned? Well, we're seeing the version that got saved to the 'Reader Folder.' Now we are going to save to the particular folder, and so here we use the 'Save As' function.

If it's personal I put it in a folder called 'EES Personal' and if the document is general law firm stuff I save it to 'Svenson Law Firm.' You get the idea. The main point I want to make is that you want to save all the scanned documents to two places. I know it seems counterintuitive but, it's no more trouble (other than using the 'Save As' function) and it gives you two organizing systems. So years later you can find stuff by when it came it, or by what category it belonged to.

Two last thoughts: (1) you need a decent sized hard drive because you don't want to have to worry about running out of storage, and (2) you should have an external USB 2.0 hard-drive attached to your desktop computer that is set to do automatic nightly backups of your 'My Documents' folder. That way, if something happens to your computer hard drive you have all your data secure.

--Ernest

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

Easy Bates stamping in Mac OS X

Bates-stamping used to be tedious work, but with the advent of scanning it's easy to bates-stamp documents using a computer.  Computers are great at this because they don't miss pages or lose count.  For Windows computers I've used and recommended Appligent's StampPDF tool, which is a $179 program (free demo copy is available).  But what about Mac users?

Fear not.  Easy Bates does the job very nicely, although at $199 it costs a bit more than the Appligent's software. I downloaded the free 10  day trial version just to check it out, and I liked it so much that I went ahead and bought it.  From the screenshot at the left (click on image to enlarge) you'll notice that there is an option to 'avoid overlapping of page contents,' which means that it won't bates stamp over text.  I tested it and it worked fine.  This is a easy to use program, and frankly I prefer it to the Windows Appligent program.  So if you have a Mac and need to do bates-stamping then this is a great program. Oh, if you have a Windows machine then don't fret: they have a PC version too.

Email practice management strategies

On Tuesday, February 14th the ABA Litigation section is offering a 1 hour teleconference entitled Surviving the E-Mail Avalanche.  Dennnis Kennedy is one of the speakers so it should be well worth attending.  The tuition is $30 for ABA Litigation Section members and $65 for general ABA members.  It's $140 for everyone else, i.e. non-ABA members.  Sign up or get more information here.

Downloading Patent Info as PDFs

Steve Nipper, a patent lawyer and premier legal blogger, has updated his great post entitled Guide to Downloading Patent Copies on the Internet.

Acrobat 7.0 Integration with Outlook

The latest version of Adobe Acrobat has tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, the widely used E-Mail program. What does this mean exactly? It means that when you install Acrobat 7.0 (Standard or Professional) it puts a button on your Outlook interface that you can click on to create PDFs of your emails. In fact, you can highlight a folder in Outlook and have the entire contents of that folder immediately converted to a single PDF file, that includes all the attachments as embeded files.

The resulting PDF file is also automatically bookmarked with three bookmarks: Author, Subject and Date. In other words the bookmarks will have one index of all emails alphabetically arranged by author, another by subject, and the last is a chronological arrangement of all emails. Of course, you can text search the emails as well.

This is a fantastic way to archive your old emails, or to share them with colleagues. One small quibble, though. While it's nice to have the attachments embedded, the attachments are not converted to PDF. So that means you have to have the native application that created the attachments in order to view them.

Mac OS X Automator Actions for PDF

Link: Apple - Mac OS X Downloads - Automator Actions.

For Mac OS 10.4 Tiger users, there are lots of cool downloads available for Automator, the new drag-and-drop workflow creation tool. I just got 10.4 installed, (and Acrobat 7!) so I haven't had time to play with Automator yet, but it looks promising. Since PDF is a native format for MacOS, there is lots of potential here. For example,

Number Stamper 1.0 Demo Bates numbering with Automator! Sequentially number your PDF files with a searchable stamp.

Text to PDF Converter Automator Actions 2.1 Freeware Drag-and-drop batch conversion of TXT, RTF, RTFD, and DOC files to PDF. New version includes Automator Action.

Count PDF Pages Action 1.0 Freeware Automator action that creates a tab-delimited report of your PDF files and their page counts.

Batch Apply Spotlight keywords 0.1 Freeware Make Spotlight even more efficient by adding your own keywords to your files.

If you are developing a workflow, please drop a line and let us know how it's going.

~~ Dave

OCR Tutorial for Acrobat 6

In going back through the comments and questions, I see that one area that concerns many people is how to use the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) abilities of Acrobat. Here's an overview, and I'll try to deal with other OCR issues very soon.

When you get a document that has been scanned, rather than exported from the software that created it, such as MS Word, it's just an image, i.e, a picture. Remember, to a computer, a picture of the letter "A" is not the same as the text character "A," so when you try to text-search an image, you get no hits because there's no text to search. Typical scanned litigation documents are in the TIFF (image) format. (There are also many software and hardware packages that scan paper directly into PDF. For now, I'm not going to address using Acrobat or other tools as the scanning software. For our purposes today, let's just say "you've got those image files that you want to convert into something you can search.")

The unique thing about PDF is that you can have an exact image of the document, plus the text, plus all kinds of metadata ALL IN ONE FILE. This is a wonderful thing -- but I will expound on its wonderfulness later.... With the "Paper Capture" tools in Acrobat, the software reads the picture, and figures out what the text is. So while you still see the "image," the software can also read the underlying text. OCR is not perfect, and it works best on first generation, laser printed images (just like your eyes do). In the past decade, however, OCR technology has gotten surprisingly accurate.

A couple of key points here. First, this discussion applies only to Acrobat, not to Reader. Second, prior to Acrobat 6, Adobe allowed you to perform "paper capture" with Acrobat only up to 50 pages. If you have Acrobat 4 or 5, you've got a 50-page limit (although, of course, there are ways to work around it.) I think that Adobe still offers the Capture Server product for large scale scanning and OCR work. It's meant for use in a high-volume production environment, such as a litigation support vendor. In my experience, in government at least, people were leery of using it because you paid by the page. That is, you could buy a 100,000 page license and then you have to fill 'er up again for the next 100,000. Acrobat 6 Professional allows you to "capture" or OCR large documents without buying the separate server, but is still not truly a substitute for industrial strength tools in a production environment. It is, however, capable of a surprising level of automation, and as far as I can tell, it's not dumbed down in its character recognition capabilities.

So here you are with a big old TIFF file. Or, if you are like me and occasionally have opposing counsel that just wants to jerk your chain, a PDF file that was produced in "image only" format from MS Word and contains no text.

In Acrobat 6, go to File > Create PDF > From File and select the TIFF file that you want to convert. That brings your image into the PDF format, but still doesn't make it word-searchable. [Note that you can also choose “From Multiple Files” if you want to do a batch. I’ll do a blurb on batch processing OCR in a later post.]

Now, go to Document > Paper Capture > Start Capture. The dialog that comes up gives you some choices. You can do a page, all pages, or a range (which might be a good choice if you have, say, a few pages of text followed by lots of charts). Be sure to click the “Edit” button to see the other things you can do, like select English as the recognized language. The PDF Output Style choice you probably want is “Searchable Image (Exact).” As a rule, I wouldn’t do any downsampling of the image, although this might reduce the size of the resulting file.

Click OK, and the OCR engine will start up. If you are running a normal Windows box of moderate memory and processor speeds, pretty much every other process will choke while Acrobat reads the document and converts the pictures of letters into text letters. If it's a heavily formatted, 1000 page document, go have lunch or save it for the end of the day because this is going to take a while. Adobe does provide a process window that keeps you apprised of events.

When it's done, don't forget to File > Save the document. And there you have it. (At this point, I always like to do a little test by running a quick search on a word that I see on the first page. It just makes me feel better to know that it worked. I also have a continuing dialogue about what to do with the original TIFF file...)

As I said, if your image file is from a laser printed copy, and it's a decent scan, the OCR accuracy is amazingly good. But it may have garbled some words, so if you want to get really fancy, go back to Document > Paper Capture and select "Find first OCR suspect" or “find all OCR suspects.” This identifies characters that the OCR engine had problems with, and gives you a chance to correct the text. You can fix the spelling if it's important to you --say for a proper name or term. That way you can be sure that the search software will find it. Otherwise, for a common word, I'd just save time and let it slide.

Hope this helps. Next up, batch processing OCR and a few of the subtle differences for those using Acrobat 4 or 5.

Reducing the size of your PDF files

Before you send that PDF file as an E-mail attachment you might want to make the file-size a little smaller. How can you do that? Well, it's not a guarantee, but if you choose "Save As" and over-write the old file you might find that the new file is significantly smaller than before. As a general rule: the bigger the file, the greater the percentage of reduction in size.

Why PDF? #2 -- Because You Are a Publisher

PDF is both wide and deep. I don't know if people recall the old ad campaign (when Acrobat Reader still sold for, like, $50) when Adobe basically promoted Acrobat and PDF as a better alternative to HTML for Web display. Then, in one of the most far-reaching business decisions of the era, Adobe decided to give the Reader away for free. And the print publishing world started to use PDF as a way to de-Babelize the files they used to prepare print materials. Which led to the collection of tools we have today as Acrobat and the universe of non-Adobe PDF tools, almost none of which are specifically for the "legal market."

Which brings us to Lawyers as Publishers. I don't mean that as any sort of metaphor. We research, write, edit, and PUBLISH (under deadlines), just like journalists, authors, academics, etc. The good news is that, because of PDF's roots in the publishing industry, there is a huge body of knowledge about workflow, automation, and customization of PDFs in that business. We legal folks would do well to learn from them, and to borrow their tools.

I've heard attorneys say that they don't really have a "workflow" like other professions, yadda yadda yadda, because every case is unique, blah blah blah. In fact, we do have such a flow, or no work would ever get out the door. Those publishing operations have spent huge amounts of money, effort, and time to optimize workflow. If you take the time to understand the "publishing" aspects of your law business, you will be able to create a much more efficient flow yourself.

A law firm's "publishing" output is going to be print/paper, electronic filing (PDF), and archival. I hope that I can shed some light on ways to optimize you