Post & Schell says, “let’s get digital” and sees big results.
Before making a big office move, this law firm needed to lose some paper weight and create a smarter records management strategy.
This law firm digitized records to increase attorney access to legal files.
Post & Schell sought to relocate its Lancaster office to a smaller space with less storage needed for paper records. The firm’s IT and Records team took this opportunity to investigate how technology could help lawyers access and search for documents while away from the office. Transforming paper-based processes such as incoming office mail became a greater priority as the firm sought to roll out a firm-wide paperless initiative.
Customer success highlights
- AccuRoute’s integration with iManage means that once a document is scanned, optical character recognition (OCR) makes them text-searchable and profiles information to route it to the correct destination in iManage.
- The firm digitized mailroom processes, which means attorneys have anytime access to urgent case files from wherever they’re working.
- The firm’s records team scanned most archived records and reduced paper storage needs by 75%.
The challenge
Post & Schell chose AccuRoute to help them undertake a paper records consolidation initiative before an office move. Leadership at the firm was also interested in finding a way to provide accessible electronic documents to attorneys in multiple offices, the home office, or on the road. The firm also needed a way to implement digital mailroom processes to ensure attorneys had real-time access to urgent files and documentation.
How they did it
Upgrading documents electronic format has brought greater flexibility and efficiency to the firm. AccuRoute and the firm’s iManage FileSite DMS integrated seamlessly. AccuRoute nowscans the documents, performs OCR to make them text-searchable. Post & Schell’s attorneys can access their documents electronically with ease from any device, even while away from the office. Using the AccuRoute/FileSite integrated system, the Post & Schell Records team scanned most archived paper files well before the Lancaster office move and reduced storage needs by 75%.
The firm used AccuRoute to streamline mail handing throughout the firm. Rather than having lawyers drop by the office to retrieve their mail, all mail is now sorted by attorney from one office. Mail is then opened and scanned using AccuRoute’s routing sheets, which contain embedded instructions on where to send the document. Upon scanning, AccuRoute performs an OCR on the mail to make it text searchable. The scanned mail is automatically stored in each lawyer’s electronic folder in FileSite, where it can be retrieved at any time. An email notification is sent to each lawyer with hyperlinks to the scanned mail items, and the lawyers simply click on the links to read their mail.
The results
Although going 100% paperless wasn’t an option, implementing digital records processes eliminated 75% of paper storage and greatly increased efficiency across the firm. By integrating with the firm’s iManage document management system (DMS), AccuRoute allowed for faster, more standardized digital mail processes to provide attorneys with access to critical documentation from anywhere.
“Our lawyers and staff across the entire firm can scan paper in and manipulate it any way they want. We don’t have to recreate the wheel anymore. We have a ‘day-forward’ approach meaning that we are carefully scrutinizing paper files before they are sent to off-site storage.”Catherine Saldutti
Records Supervisor and Trainer,
Post & Schell
The legal digital mailroom is a great start. Check out our blog, “5 Benefits of Creating a Digital Mailroom” to see why.
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