Posted by: Karen Thompson
Without wanting to sound like an Oprah groupie, I remember my 'light bulb' moment when I got serious about formulating a tangible proposal to put to my Managing Director about going paperless. It wasn't inspired by seminar rhetoric that it would improve productivity and cost effectiveness, although they are the Holy Grail for any legal IT team project. It was when I realised that the 'dual' system we were operating under was inferior to the smoke-filled law offices of the 1950s and 1960s, where the most advanced technology was the kettle in the tea room. I was shocked to realise that with all our technology, sophisticated systems and advanced processes, we were at a significant disadvantage to the 'Mad Men' type law offices operating 60 years ago with only a yellow legal pad, pen, phone and rolodex and all their files securely in a bank of filing cabinets behind them.
Why? Because in all our wisdom we had created a rod for our back with a dual system, computer and paper based, operating side by side requiring double the workload to maintain and fraught with risk management issues and lengthy delays. Even on the best day, when secretaries had all their filing up to date, it only took a single email to come in on a matter and the paper file was once again out of date, unsynchronised, thereby creating 2 sources of truth.
John Clarke stated that sometimes you need to 'Go back a little to leap further forward' and that is what we did at Anderssens. We looked back to the efficiencies of our senior partners' era and learnt a thing or two. (Yes those smoke filled, male dominated times have something to teach us technological savvy, cerebrally advanced Gen Xs and Ys).
We needed to return to the single system the legal profession had spent 100 of years perfecting, however converting it to an electronic only format.
In our quest, we did find the Holy Grail (minus the nicotine stained paper files!). Productivity and cost effectiveness have improved which has greatly benefited our service to clients as a result of operating from one source of truth, however unlike our senior predecessors our lawyers are no longer tethered to their desk, filing cabinets and typing pools. They can operate from anywhere confident their information is secure and up to date and available in any format this modern day legal industry demands.
