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Last week
I described how I was able to use "enabling"
technologies to help replace a valuable staff member
I recently lost to retirement. Enabling technologies
have allowed me to avoid hiring a full-time replacement
by helping my office staff better utilize their time
more efficiently. This week, I'll continue discussing
these technologies by looking at digital filing, computerized
litigation support, and billing, accounting, and case
management software.
DIGITAL FILING
Digitally filing and retrieving documents is another
major approach to reducing unnecessary staff overhead
- it allows highly trained paraprofessional staff to
focus on the skilled tasks for which they are best suited
rather than mundane filing. Over the years, I have worked
with quite a number of paperless office concepts, scanners,
and programs, but was ultimately content to rely upon
experienced professional staff with a deep knowledge
of each case. The time had come, though, to transition
to electronic document scanning, filing and retrieval
with a vengeance.
Over the years, I have purchased quite a number of
scanners but found them to be inadequate or not broadly
compatible with many scanning and document imaging programs.
After a great deal of research, I settled upon Visioneer's
new 9650 scanner with 12 page per minute automatic
document feeder. Of the low-end business scanners now
on the market, the Visioneer 9650 is worth seeking out
although it does have a disconcerting tendency to skew
scanned documents. Microtek's
automatic document feeder scanner allegedly scans up
to 15 pages per minute but real-world scanning speed
was an unacceptably slow 3 pages per minute. After trying
one for a while, I decided that it wasn't worth even
the $300 that I paid for it. Higher end scanners are
still expensive but may be worth the saved staff time
in the long run. At this point, a good USB 2.0 scanner
is the best bet for highly compatible, fast operation
in a small law office. SCSI scanners are still available
but unnecessarily complex to set up.
I found, starting with my earlier Visioneer 9650, that
the automatic document feeder versions of Visioneer's
scanners install easily into Windows 2000 and XP, and
are broadly compatible with a wide range of imaging
programs. Overall, I found that the Visioneer products
tended to be less troublesome than the Hewlett-Packard
scanners that I had previously purchased. The newest
USB Visioneer scanners are clearly optimized for business
use. The 9650, when used with the automatic document
feeder to scan black-and-white text for document imaging
or for optical character recognition, has an impressive
(for its price) 12 page per minute scanning speed. Even
faster would be nicer, of course, but certainly more
expensive. When you purchase a Visioneer 9650, you'll
also receive ScanSoft's PaperPort scanning software
and TextBridge OCR software. Because of my disappointment
with the Microtek scanning hardware and Microtek's clumsy
scanning software, I'm looking at one of Canon's new
20 page per minute scanners that cost about $850.
I earlier considered HP's
7450 scanner, which claims a black-and-white to
scanning speed of 14 pages per minute. Because of several
prior unresolved difficulties with HP's automatic document
feeders and my occasional troubles with HP's scanning
software, I passed on the comparable HP scanner. In
fact, I moved my barely used HP 6250 into the storage
room. Neither the HP dealer nor I could ever get that
6250's ADF to work consistently and reliably.
Epson's 1640SU has received very high customer ratings
and is about $175 less expensive than a Visioneer 9650,
but the Epson's relatively slow scanning speed disqualified
it from my perspective. After all, why spend money to
reduce unnecessary staff overhead if you end up paying
a staff member to feed a slow scanner?
After the scanner came the scanning software. Visioneer
includes PaperPort 7, but ScanSoft's later PaperPort
version 9 has many nice features not found in earlier
PaperPort products, including the ability to scan double-sided
documents, direct PDF output, a direct link to a Web
document repository service, and some excellent graphics
manipulation and photo editing features that would be
useful when preparing exhibits. I've seen PaperPort
selling for as low as $69.95 per copy after rebate at
CompUSA. PaperPort 9 works well for a small office like
mine, particularly when the scanned documents are stored
in a separate subdirectory folder for each client rather
than in a single large, indexed database. In my office,
because the networked word processing program already
included separate subdirectories for each client, the
simplest solution was to store all imaged documents
in a separate imaged document set of sub-folders within
the client subdirectory and storing the scanned documents
pertaining to a particular client matter another folder
in the same subdirectory. Although that's not as elegant
as a highly indexed client-server database, this approach
makes sense for a small law office, and is quick, easy,
and intuitive for new staff members. It also makes it
easy to add scanned documents as individual entries
into litigation support programs without a lot of work.
Over time, we have started imaging every new document
pertaining to every matter.
PaperPort's initial set up was rather easy, but I ran
into problems when I later decided to add ScanSoft's
higher end Omnipage OCR software, which I also purchased
because of its ability to output documents in the PDF
file format particularly useful for litigation support
and for document exchange. Because PaperPort's built
in OCR software seems to do a good job at routine optical
character recognition, there's probably is no reason
for small law office to invest in an expensive copy
of Omnipage.
We continue to use PaperPort for OCR and other routine
document imaging that did not require widely sharing
scanned files, using them in litigation, or archiving
imaged documents. For these latter purposes, I ultimately
purchased Adobe's Acrobat 5 software, which costs about
$260 retail for the full version. Acrobat works well
with the Visioneer 9650's basic scanning software and
but does not fully correct some of the skewing and other
imaging problems that can be corrected manually in PaperPort.
Because we have had some skewing problems that caused
unsightly and unprofessional crooked scans, I have recently
started scanning and correcting documents in PaperPort
and then exporting them to Acrobat for final conversation
to PDF format and markup. This takes a little more time
but the extra time is not particularly burdensome and
the results are worth it. Adobe's free downloadable
Acrobat Reader is a read-only subset of the full Acrobat
program. The full Acrobat program not only scans and
converts page documents to PDF but also includes annotation
capabilities and the ability to directly convert certain
types of documents directly into PDF without first scanning
them. PDF files can be moved and used from any file
location without resorting to the somewhat cumbersome
imaged file tracking systems used by other document
scanning programs.
The totally paperless office is still in the future.
What can imaging technology do for you now? Much faster
document retrieval. Easy litigation file preparation.
Greatly reduced retyping when OCR is used. These benefits
alone probably save four to six hours per week for each
support staff member on an average week, and far more
when we had to create litigation notebooks and exhibits.
LITIGATION SUPPORT
One of the more useful but subtle benefits of using
the full Acrobat program is its ability to work directly
with CaseSoft's CaseMap litigation support program,
which is rapidly becoming a standard for litigation
support in all but the largest cases. CaseMap's optional
Adobe plug-in takes text from a PDF file and converts
it to a CaseMap fact entry, complete with source references
and the ability to directly view the linked source file.
Other separately sold CaseSoft programs provide strong
outlining support, deposition support, and graphical
time lines. Using straightforward litigation support
programs such as these not only greatly improves the
quality of your litigation efforts but also reduces
the need for paralegal assistance in preparing trial
notebooks. You'll still need paralegal support for your
litigation efforts unless you're willing to do all of
the initial data analysis and entry yourself, but overall,
programs such as these will substantially reduce the
paralegal time required to prepare a case for trial.
BILLING, ACCOUNTING AND CASE MANAGEMENT
Billing, accounting, and case management were the next
areas where more highly integrated technology seemed
cost-effective. Previously, my office staff had done
my billing in Timeslips, accounting in Quickbooks Pro,
and case management using a basic calendar and contact
database program not too different from Outlook. After
considering several programs, I initially chose a five
user network versions of PCLaw Jr. 5.5, primarily because
of its tightly integrated accounting and billing functions.
In the process of setting up PCLaw Jr. 5.5, I tried
to use the included networked diary, calendar and to-do
lists, finding that these functions were likewise integrated
with the billing modules. The setup for these latter
functions seemed to be, perhaps, less than intuitively
obvious. Upgrading to PCLaw 6.21 with the optional calendaring
and diary modules made all of the difference. PCLaw
6.21 is much easier to set up and use, integrating calendaring
and other case management functions plus accounting
and billing, much more completely. That tighter integration
greatly reduced the time needed to input data into several
different programs, again substantially reducing demands
not only upon staff but upon the attorneys as well.
Improved calendaring and case management probably saves
about one to two hours of staff time per support person
each week. Integrated accounting and billing saves about
10 hours of staff time during an average week, although
some outside contract accounting became necessary to
perform some tasks that the attorney could not economically
perform. Improved accounting and billing probably saves,
on average, about 5 hours per week.
There are some tasks where technology cannot, or should
not, be substituted for trained staff. Technology cannot
mail your letters nor physically file them with the
Court, where that is required, nor make photocopies
nor greet clients and make them feel welcome, comfortable
and important to you and your staff. Technology cannot
keep your paper files in order. For now, along with
imaged documents, we undoubtedly will maintain our paper
files for some years to come. Technology cannot notarize
a document for a client nor listen to, and reassure,
a client. These tasks require trained and caring staff.
What enabling technologies can do, however, is to allow
your staff to focus upon those matters needing a human
touch and human hands without being diverted into time-wasting
tasks that the attorney can perform faster, and less
expensively using enabling technologies.
In my office, the net result of spending a few thousand
dollars on technology has been to reduce my support
staff overhead from about $95,000 per year for two full-time
paralegals and a shared receptionist to $20,000 for
a shared one-time secretary and shared receptionist,
with greatly improved profitability, and without significant
loss of client service. The transition has taken some
time and I have had to do some tasks that I would have
previously delegated, but the overall result has been
highly positive.
Top
Joseph Kashi is an attorney
and litigator living in Soldotna, Alaska who is active
in the Law Practice Management Section and a technology
editor for Law Practice Today. He has written regularly
on legal technology for the Law Practice Management
Section, Law Office Computing Magazine and other publications
since 1990. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from
MIT in 1973 and his J.D. from Georgetown University
in 1976, and is admitted to practice in Alaska, Pennsylvania,
the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
and the U.S. Supreme Court.
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