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Solutions for the Legal Sector

Efficient case management today requires Law Offices to have PDF conversion capabilities and the use of PDF files. Law Offices are paper intense. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent yearly on case management. Attorneys and staff spend the vast majority of their time creating, filing, managing, storing and retrieving legal documents. PDF files, like no other file format, makes optimum efficiency possible.

PDF Files Adopted By U.S. Federal Courts
After an extensive study on how to improve court processes and procedures, the U.S. Federal Courts have concluded filing and sharing legal documents related to court cases is faster, easier and less expensive using PDF files. To streamline courthouse procedures the Administrative Offices of the U.S. Courts developed the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) prototype project using PDF files as their electronic document format. The CM/ECF system now allows submission and access to entire case files and dockets in PDF files via the Web. Michael Greenwood, program manager for the CM/ECF prototype project emphasized,

"We require virtually all documents submitted to the U.S. Courts to be stored electronically as PDF files, which attorneys, judges, court personnel, other trial participants, and the public can access via the Web."

The CM/ECF system with electronic PDF files is currently in place in 9 districts and is targeted for rollover to all 200 federal courts nationwide. To date, more than 80,000 case documents, and over a million PDF files are available electronically.

Key Objectives For Implementing a Document Imaging System
We have found that law firms have two primary objectives when considering implementing a document imaging system:

To enhance case management
To reduce paper storage cost.

Enhancing Case Management
Because paper evidence is the cornerstone of litigation, attorneys spend significant amounts of time collecting and reviewing these documents and filling their files with more and more paper. Our document imaging system brings new levels of accessibility and interactivity to case management. It also meets the three essential requirements of the legal profession.

Electronic documents must be visually identical, like photocopies, of the paper documents,
They must be compact and easily shared with others, even outside the office, and
They must be easily searchable.

For Attorneys, PDF files provide extremely powerful case management tools, which is why the U.S. Federal Courts have adopted this file format as its electronic filing system. Attorneys can quickly search these documents and in seconds assemble PDF versions of key trial material that would take legal assistants days to find in paper form.

Collaborating on a case is handled more quickly and easily with our document imaging system. PDF files can be shared on the law firms' computer network or over the Internet. And with our mark-up tools, Attorneys can easily communicate their thoughts with electronic annotation tools, like text highlighting and strikethrough, circling and sticky notes.

How we deal with multiple users
Many Attorneys, when faced with the frustration of being unable to put their hands on a specific file when it's needed, become "file hoarders", unwilling to entrust their client files to what seems to be a disorganized, slow moving central filing system. Then, because files aren't where they are suppose to be, the missing file must be recreated. Thus, Law firms incur another unnecessary expenses a result of an inefficient filing system.

With our document imaging system, the PDF file is always available on the network. Furthermore, it allows multiple people to use the same file at the same time, eliminating the need to make copies of the documents. And because PDF files can be copied onto a laptop computer or a handheld device (PDA), Attorneys can take the information they need with them, while leaving the original file on the network so that other staff members in the office can continue to have access to all of the PDF files.

Reducing Paper Storage Costs
Because legal work resides on paper, storage cost is a major expense for most law firms. The problem is compounded because of the copy machine. Firms not only file and store originals of documents, they file and store copies of documents, and the cost of storing this information continues long after the useful life of the paper file.

A major benefit of our document imaging system to Law firms is the ability to significantly eliminate these costs. For example, a three-drawer filing cabinet can be stored on one CD for a cost of under $1.00; and because PDF files are filed from your desktop PC, personnel time to file documents is reduced to a fraction of what it once was.

Conclusion
With the U.S. Federal Courts moving to the PDF file format, it will soon become a necessity for a law firms to possess the capabilities of our document imaging system. The benefits PDF files offer case preparation, case management, office efficiencies and reducing paper storage costs makes it clear that our document imaging system will positively impact your law firms' bottom line.