When I got my first job out of college (back when God was a child) as a loan officer trainee at a big bank, computers (old Wang workstations) were only for secretaries. I suggested to my superiors that if I had a computer on my desk I could be much more efficient but that was like asking them to send me to school to learn stenography. Several years later, when I got out of law school and went to work at a law firm and at legal aid, still no computer on my desk. But that didn’t last long.

In talking to lawyers about going paperless, I’ve come to realize that in some offices with more than one attorney or more than one staff person, the scanner (if there is one) is treated like the fax machine or the copier. That is, they have one machine, it is in a common area, and the lawyer either has to leave his or her desk to use it or ask the staff person to scan the documents.  The scanner is treated like the old Wang workstation.

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If you have already upgraded to Adobe Acrobat 9, you will have to make a quick change before you can use it for electronic case filing. Acrobat 9 introduces a number of new features, so you have to make sure your PDFs are backwards-compatible. It is an easy change to the settings, though.

Here are easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions (PDF link) from the court with screenshots.

Kudos to LexisNexis for its efforts to reduce paper waste! At a moot court orientation session at the University of Minnesota Law School this morning, the LexisNexis rep showed up and—this blew me away—did not hand out a single sheet of paper.

The Westlaw rep, meanwhile, made a huge book available. Mercifully, they did not pass out copies to everyone this year. I took one the first year I taught moot court, and it went right into the recycling bin.

“Green” is becoming as lame a word as “extreme,” but I still like to see companies reducing waste. Especially the paper garbage they churn out. Score one for LexisNexis.

The video recording I made did not turn out all that well, so instead I am posting the audio. Since my slides are demonstrative rather than substantive, you should be able to follow along just fine without the visuals. It is about 30 minutes long, so grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy!

(SoloSmallTech will merge with Lawyerist within the next few weeks. Stay tuned as we expand to address lawyering in general, not just gadgets and software.)

It really is this easy:

(View larger.)

My wife’s company has a “summer camp” retreat this weekend, and invited family members to tag along. So I did. I loved that I could pick up and tag along with nothing but my laptop. As a solo, I can’t really afford to take a three-day vacation, but because I have a paperless office, I can work just as easily from this lake resort as I can from my office.

But unlike working from my office, there is a deck with an amazing view off our hotel room. And a canoe at the marina that is calling my name . . .

I am just a couple of baby steps from being able to take my entire office with me (well, not the furniture) wherever I go. My files are all digitized and stored (encrypted) on my laptop (and backed up daily), I send and receive faxes electronically, and I use Skype so that I can pick up my phone from anywhere I have a wireless connection. Most attorneys are willing to receive e-mail rather than paper mail, and since at least half of my work is in federal court, electronic filing means I do not need to generate paper. (Come on, Minnesota state courts!)

The only thing I need is a way to get my paper mail electronically so that I only have to stop in once in a while to pick up original copies. If I someday hire a secretary or paralegal, then they can do it for me, but until that day, I still have to stop in the office every day or so to check my paper mail.

(I could also use a portable scanner, but there are plenty of options; I just don’t want to carry one around.)

As I was waiting for my calendar to load on my Treo this morning to check my availability for an appointment, I had a moment of longing for the paper planner I used to use. No waiting for my Treo to crash, reboot, and connect. No tedious flipping through screens. Just open to the right page, check availability, and scribble a note.

On the other hand, it is awfully hard to back up paper, which is why I will not go back. And if you don’t have the paper calendar with you, you cannot use it. I am famous for leaving things lying around, so I need to be able to pick up where I left off with as little downtime as possible. And I love being able to access my calendar from any computer or phone anywhere in the world. Makes the waiting worthwhile, in the end.

From Unclutterer comes a great post by Zen Habits author Leo Babauta on creating a minimalist workspace. Most of the attorneys I know life among piles of paper. While some defend their “system” of “organization,” most just don’t seem to know how to escape from the paper jungle they created for themselves.

So the first step is for you to consider your requirements for working, and what’s essential to your workflow. If possible, streamline and simplify that workflow and those requirements. Then, once you’ve got that down to a minimum, see what the minimum setup would be for those essentials and your workflow. Eliminate everything unnecessary.

. . .

It’s interesting to note that what you think your requirements are might not be the minimum. They might just be what you’re used to doing.

[photo: Zen Habits]