For the human body to work at its full potential, it needs to be in good shape. Carrying excess fat, as we all know, leads to poor physical and mental performance, and the same could be said to be true of our workplaces. A healthy – and happy – office is one that is lean and fit, where the job in hand can be carried out with energy and efficiency, and where each part of the overall system functions effectively.
Legally Overweight?
Optimising a law firm's
filing environment
By Geoff HoggSenior Consultant, NewField ITLaw firms & paper: a life of excess
For the human body to work at its full potential, it needs to be in good shape.
Carrying excess fat, as we all know, leads to poor physical and mental performance, and the same could be said to be true of our workplaces. A healthy - and happy - office is one that is lean and fit, where the job in hand can be carried out with energy and efficiency, and where each part of the overall system functions effectively.
So why is it that, despite the rapid development of electronic means of communication and record keeping, the UK's paper-addicted law firms still find themselves on the flabby - or even obese - side of the business population? We have used our own recent audit data from 46 different organisations and have discovered that the amount of paper information created per employee per annum is nearly three times higher in the legal sector than across other sectors, and many law firms are suffocating under the mountain of paper filing they create.
25 000 £75020 000 £50015 00010 000 £2505 0000 0LEGAL SECTOR ALL OTHER SECTORS LEGAL SECTOR ALL OTHER SECTORS
It's data which is also reflected in terms of cost: law firms spend nearly 80% more per employee on printing each year than other organisations.
The excessive use of paper information causes problems right across a firm. For example, a policy of maintaining hardcopies of all client emails, common in many law firms, has the knock-on effect of filling up offices with paper filing and leaving secretaries in despair as they try to keep up with ever-increasing print volumes.
Law firms will typically have both paper-based and electronic-based workflows as shown below, but unlike many other types of organisation the paper based workflows still dominate.
DOCUMENT WORKFLOW: INPUT PROCESS DISTRIBUTE STORE DESTROY
ANOTATE LOCAL FILINGPAPER INTERNAL/DOCUMENT SIGN EXTERNAL RECEIPT MAIL OFF-SITE SCANPAPER DOCUMENT ARCHIVE RETENTION & DESTRUCTION POLICYELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DOCUMENT PRINT EMAIL MANAGEMENT AUTHORING SYSTEMCOMPAREELECTRONIC DOCUMENT RECORDS ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT EDIT MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT DOCUMENT RECEIPT SYSTEM SYSTEM
2So why is this? Law firms have historically worked 3. Paper filing takes up large amounts of with large quantities of information, but so have expensive office space.organisations in other sectors, such as financial services. The difference is that financial services 4. Paper filing has a greater impact on the organisations have a requirement to exchange environment, which many firms find unacceptable this information with their millions of customers in a world which is becoming more sensitive to and with each other around the globe in a highly corporate and social responsibility.efficient manner, then to act on it in real time to maintain their competitiveness. In other words, it's in their competitive interest to get into shape. Getting in shape:Paper workflows are simply unable to support meeting the challengethese information exchanges, so electronic systems have played a key role in banking and other financial processes since the early days of So what needs to be in place to enable a firm to computing in the 1960s. Massive investments have break this addiction to paper and become more been made over the years to provide the modern streamlined and efficient? A successful electronic-financial infrastructures with which we are all based system will be achieved through a number familiar, whether it is settling an insurance claim of linked elements:online or conducting banking transactions from the comfort of our own home. A recognition that change is needed The following steps will require time and Law firms have not been forced to embrace money to implement so senior recognition of, such radical and expensive change to maintain and support for, the need to change will be their competitive advantage so, not surprisingly, essential. Have your senior partners bought in to change has been much slower. So we still see the changes you want to make? Will they make huge quantities of paper filing in the offices of available the necessary resource and budget?most law firms. Our audits show an average of 14 linear metres of filing per employee; in the case A culture embrac... [download for more]
