Working toward the paperless office.

A busy lawyer is often one who has every chair, every couch, every bit of shelf space or window ledge, and, sometimes, every part of the floor covered by pieces of paper, folders, and files. Sound familiar?

If you surf the Internet, you may find text on Web sites that you want to save. You also want access to pleadings, memorandums, and briefs created in your office word-processing program. If you're like me, you probably print it all out and stack the papers with every intention of filing them in separate folders. Then you get distracted by a telephone call or another matter. The stacks of paper grow, and material you know you printed cannot be found.

For plaintiff lawyers, efficiency, productivity, and reduction of overhead costs (such as unnecessary copies of documents) are essential for success in the modern practice of law. The following technologies are perfect for the busy lawyer. Not only can you access important information, but you can reduce the number of pages you need to print and the amount of time it would take to print, file, and retrieve the information. If the information needs to be shared, it is available on your computer, file server, backup resource, or the Internet.

Note taking

Searching through random scraps of paper--or random electronic documents in which you've jotted notes--can be frustrating. There are full-text indexing software products that also provide full-text searching, such as ISYS. (See Paul Bernstein, Enchanting ISYS: The Ultimate Indexing Software, TRIAL, Mar. 1999, at 96; http://www.atla.org/publications/ trial/9903/t993lot.htm.)

However, implementing ISYS properly is a firmwide decision, and your office may be focusing on more basic technology. There is another product that can help you organize and end the glut of paper. It's called Jot+ Notes.

Jot+ Notes is a lot like MemoryMate, the personal information manager from Atlantic Coast PLC that stores bits of information. Jot lets you type or paste text into a window on your computer and save the note. These can be random notes, or you can create a multilevel outline.

For example, you may want to make a list of potential expert witnesses or store information about people you meet in court and at bar association meetings. In Jot, you would create a category or topic called "Experts," another called "Contacts," and perhaps a third called "New Cases." Jot stays loaded in your computer's memory, and you can keep it open on your desktop while you work on other applications. To make an entry in your Jot lists, click your mouse on the category title, then click on the "New Note" icon in the menu bar and type in the information. Click on the "Save" icon to preserve the note.

To do a full-text search of all your notes, activate Jot with a single click and highlight the folder containing all your notes or just a single category. Click on the flashlight icon to begin a key word search. Type in a key word, click on "Find Next," and, in the blink of an eye, the program will display the first "hit" of text containing that key word. To find the next hit, just click on "Find Next" again.

By using Jot+ Notes, you can eliminate all those yellow stickies and envelopes with scrawled notes on the back. You can even save text and case law in this simple program.

Perhaps the best news is that you can try Jot+ Notes for a free evaluation period by downloading the program from the vendor's Internet site at http://www.kingstairs. com/jot/. If you want to buy it and keep it forever, it costs just $25. You don't even have to leave your office to get the product, since it's sold exclusively on the Internet.

Try it and let me know what you think.

Scanners

I own one of the original PaperPort scanners, but no matter what version you buy, a scanner will save you from towering stacks of paper. The PaperPort I still use must be hand-fed one page at a time, but it only takes a few seconds to scan a page. Since scanners can be difficult to install and get working properly, you should have someone with technical experience help you with the initial configuration and show you how to work with the equipment.

Once you have a scanner on your desk, here's what you can do. Scanners use optical character recognition (OCR) software to convert an image or picture of a document into text that can be edited and searched. I scan interrogatories from opposing counsel, then add the words "Answers to" above the word "Interrogatories" so that I can start the answering and editing process without retyping the original interrogatories.

Using the familiar drop-down menus that come with most Windows-based products, you can save the image and the text version of the image in a folder you create for that case. Throw away the hard copy of the interrogatories if you wish. There's no need to copy them, put a copy in the file, or deal with paper at all.

Some lawyers I know scan the bills and invoices they receive. For example, suppose you get an invoice from a court reporter. Scan it and save the image file in a "Costs Advanced" folder. Don't file the original invoice--just throw it away. When it's time to pay that invoice, just print out a copy to include with your check to the court reporter.

You might want to talk to your tax accountant about whether you need that original piece of paper. But having a copy you can print from your computer--should you ever need it for the IRS or to document reimbursements for costs advanced--along with your canceled check should be more than adequate documentation to substantiate a transaction.

Visioneer, a subsidiary of Primax Electronics Ltd., develops and markets scanners that are more sophisticated than the older PaperPort. The products generally work with both Windows and Macintosh computers, and prices start at just under $200. Visit the Visioneer Web site at http://www.visioneer.com/dynahome.html to see the full range of scanners.

Online backup 

To ensure that electronic versions of formerly paper files remain accessible, you need a backup strategy. Have you ever had a hard disk crash? Often the information contained on it is irretrievable. We all know we should keep a backup copy of the information on our computer systems, but backing up can be easily overlooked.

And if you do back up your system on tape, what if the tape is damaged and useless? Although tape backup systems generally work, where do you turn if yours fails?

Internet-based backup resources are proliferating. Internet services generally allow you to back up files and folders from your computer on their servers. Some offer a certain amount of free storage, and others charge a modest fee. Two that seem to have their act together are My Docs Online at http://www.mydocsonline.com/ and @Backup at http://www.backup.com/.

But what about confidentiality? Although confidential documents clearly should not be stored on the Internet unless encrypted, you can, and should, back up documents that are not confidential. For example, pleadings on file in a court case are not confidential since they're in a court file--unless there is a nondisclosure agreement, in which case you could delete the folder with the protected documents from the online backup. Similarly, back up your forms library, the digital versions of depositions, and other nonconfidential data online.

Choose a vendor that appears to be adequately capitalized, not a dot-com company exhausting its cash resources.

I am not suggesting this as your only form of backup. But as you investigate these resources, you may see advantages for your firm. For example, you might eliminate the need to take a laptop computer with you as you travel. If your documents are on the Internet, you can access them from any computer with an Internet connection. If you make changes, make sure you save documents under a different name so that you don't end up with different versions of the same information on your hard drive and on the Internet.

Threaded discussion groups

How often do you print e-mail messages from the Internet? I do it far too often, and, again, the result is uncategorized piles of papers throughout the office. One way to avoid this bit of paper production is to use threaded discussion group software. (See Paul Bernstein, Collaboration Is Knowledge: Join a Forum, TRIAL, July 2000, at 126; http://www.atla.org/publications/ trial/0007/t007ber.htm.)

List serve technology makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to see e-mail messages that have already been sent to those on a list. Those new to the list serve may not take the time to learn how to find those messages--particularly if there are hundreds or thousands of them. Although most e-mail packages allow you to create folders to store messages permanently, in my experience, few trial lawyers have the patience or inclination to master these capabilities.

With a threaded discussion group, individual entries in a topic under discussion can be permanently stored on the Internet, and all the messages from day one can be viewed at one time. Thus, you need not save important entries. You can always log on to the Internet, go to that discussion, and read those notes again.

If you log on to a forum and see many new entries but don't have time to read them as you're headed to court, you don't have to print them and waste more paper. If you have a computer at home--and all lawyers should--you can wait, log back into that forum from home, and do your reading in a more relaxed way.

Lawyers can easily learn to use these resources in order to save a bundle in time and paper costs.

Get organized

Searching through random scraps of paper--or random electronic documents in which you've jotted notes--can be frustrating.

Paul Bernstein is an attorney and law office automation consultant in Chicago. He can be reached by e-mail at paulbern @interaccess.com. The views expressed in this column are the author's and do not constitute an endorsement of any product by TRIAL or ATLA.