Comments on: Paperless Law Office Is Easier Than You Think

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:49:43 +0000

The Xerox is also Twain compliant.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:39:02 +0000

the software package seems robust.

By: Aaron Street

Aaron Street — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:48:35 +0000

Chris, If the Xerox is double the cost of the ScanSnap, what is its appeal to you?

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:21:10 +0000

Sam,
Do you (or anyone reading this note) have any experience with the Xerox Documate scanning products? I am deciding whether to go with them or Fujitsu. The Xerox 262 is double the cost of the Fujitsu 1500. The 152 is about $100 more.
Thanks,
Chris

By: Sam Glover

Sam Glover — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:39:03 +0000

@Daniel: I use a scanned signature for most cover letters and such things. Some documents require a real signature, of course.

But yes, I do. There is little sense printing out a cover letter, signing it, and then scanning it, if I am just going to e-mail or fax it.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:37:05 +0000

Sam, have you given any thought to using digital signatures? Do you still signatures in hardcopy?

By: Sam Glover

Sam Glover — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:33:27 +0000

@Ted: Great point on backup. I urge people to have at least two backups at all times, one onsite (because it is faster), and one offsite (in case the office burns down). I have a few more backups than that, in three separate locations. And I test them regularly to make sure they are all working.

If your backup is set up well, you may find yourself using it as an “extended undo” from day to day.

By: Tad Harrison

Tad Harrison — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:08:53 +0000

Glad to hear you are enjoying the “Paperless Office”, and you are using the gold standard of scanners, the ScanSnap.

A few thoughts:

First and foremost, before anyone starts shredding, the backup strategy must be rock solid. The electronic document must exist in two different places before it is shredded.

I see you use the automatic sorting naming format—nice! Might I recommend that as much useful information be embedded in the filename as possible (and reasonable) since in many cases, that is all you have if your indexing software fails you or a document file is moved out if its folder structure.

I ended up creating year folders under each subcategory (e.g. “Bills/2008″ and “Bills/2009″). Other arrangements are possible; one being copying your full folder structure for each year (e.g. “2008/Bills”). Mine seemed to work best for me, with many dozens of special folders but only a few with enough content to merit year folders.

One final thought: I assume you are (or will be) using some indexing software to tag and index your files. Be warned—those tools are great, but they typically keep your tags and such in an internal proprietary database that can be lost due to many things, including obsolescence.
Here’s an article I wrote on that particular topic: http://paperjammed.com/2009/03.....d-hostage/

Tad