According to the amount of legal cases that the American Bar Association claims are being filed each year, it is no surprise that the legal profession is up to its knees in paperwork. Most law firms are discovering that it is a struggle to keep up with the pace of this current litigation explosion and are scurrying just to keep up with their daily work-related responsibilities. Manually searching through file cabinets or boxes, to prepare for a deposition is not time efficient, and in the legal profession, time is money.
Office rental space can cost in the vicinity of one-hundred dollars or higher per square foot. Smaller firms inevitably run out of space. Larger law firms might be located in a more spacious environment, however with larger client bases, storage issues are still problematic. One alternative that law firms have used in the past is to store their overflow of legal files at offsite storage facilities. One mid-size firm estimated that they spent as much as $350,000 annually for document storage alone. The problem with this type of storage solution system is that the costs are always rising and it does not provide any long-term solutions.
Document imaging or document scanning can save a company or firm substantial amount of money in overhead, staffing, management, and retrieval costs. Storing records electronically, not only maximizes the speed and efficiency as to the way a business operates, it also can help firms to:
· easily search for client files from your desk
· reduce the time and costs of making photocopies
· reduce or eliminate the amount of documents that are misplaced
· eliminate the need for off-site storage facilities
· easily share documents with other staff members
By hiring a document scanning company, law firms can effortlessly convert all of their documents to PDF files. Electronic filing technology is a great resource that enables any legal corporation to create, work with, and maintain all the necessary documents needed to conduct their legal business affairs. Saving time and cutting costs will essentially benefit business, and the efficiency that it creates in your workplace cannot be underestimated.