Practically every task that takes place in the legal industry utilizes paper. From deeds and contracts, to wills, leases, agreements, and litigations – the list of paper files that are necessary for the success of any task in this document intensive industry is endless.
From billing challenges to long hours, it can be incredibly overwhelming to work in a law firm or legal industry. Not only do lawyers and legal professionals have to spend their days “translating” legalese so that their clients can understand them, but, according to LexisNexis, 77% of legal professionals say they’re overwhelmed by information. Who could blame them? So many clients, so many cases, so many documents.
With so many files to deal with and keep track of, it’s no wonder lawyers work such long hours! Thankfully, there are some great options to help them with their workflows.
Take document management for example. Being an information-driven field, legal firms have to be careful with their data. Legal professionals have to handle confidential client data, juggle multiple tasks and cases and make a note of most minute changes, which requires constant access to documents and smooth collaboration. Legal document management helps to1:
- Convert paper documents to digital files
- Convert paper documents to digital files
- Retain document for long case cycles
- Access to documents simultaneously for peer review, revision and approval
- Find case-related documents instantly
- Prepare for discovery requests
In the SMB space, Clio is the industry-leading legal practice management cloud service. For larger law offices or corporate legal departments, iManage leads the pack for document management. But, how do they get those hardcopy documents they receive during “discovery” into these systems? With ConnectKey legal apps and ConnectKey-enabled multifunction devices, of course!
The app gallery now features the Xerox Connect App for Clio and Xerox Connect App for iManage. While these apps allow the user to log into their Clio, or iManage accounts and scan documents directly into client and/or matter folders, they also allow for searching, previewing, and printing of documents already stored in those repositories right from within the app.
Another concern shared by small law firms is that up to 5.6 hours of billable work daily are not charged back to their customers. To help them, the Xerox Connect App for Clio has an Expense Tracking feature that allows the user to record reimbursable scanning and printing fees, a unique feature on the marketplace.
Signatures play a tremendous role in the legal industry. DocuSign is the leading player in the e-signature market, controlling about 70%.2 The Xerox Connect App for DocuSign is an essential supplement to DocuSign. Users can print documents from DocuSign for distribution and archiving, scan and save as a draft or send to recipients with redefined DocuSign templates, or create new envelopes — complete with recipients and signature fields — right at their multifunction device.
Another timely and costly job function in the legal industry is redaction. Let’s assume you have 5,000 documents that average 10 pages each, and that an attorney (whose billable rate is $50/hour) can redact one page every three minutes, and double checking each redaction for accuracy can be done at a pace of 200 pages per hour.3
- 5,000 documents x 10 pages = 50,000 pages
- 50,000 pages x 3 minutes = 150,000 minutes (2,500 hours)
- 50,000 pages / 200 pages per hour = 250 hours
- 2,500 hours + 250 hours = 2,750 hours total
- 2,750 hours x $50/hour = $137,500
The Xerox Auto-Redaction App removes sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII) – names, phone numbers, emails, Social Security numbers, dates of birth – from an entire document in seconds. You simply choose your criteria, scan, preview the results and either print or email the fully redacted document. Custom redaction types are easy to add, and there’s plenty of flexibility to meet your specific needs.
Saving time and money is a win-win in my book!
Let us help you get started today – learn more or schedule a demo to see these apps in action!
