OFFICE DIGITISATION SOLUTIONS
FOR LAWYERS
This blog is a free knowledge sharing platform for legal professionals in India, especially independent law offices or small to medium strength law firms, who aspire to fully digitise their office on 'Do It Yourself' basis.
While large-sized organisations or law firms have special teams and resources to deal with their technological needs, complete digitisation seems ‘Mission Impossible’ for most legal professionals.
This blog deals with methods to utilise commonly available consumer software in a systematic and sustained manner to gradually achieve full digitisation.
Though this blog is titled "Sans Paper", its emphasis is not merely on being paperless (though that is an added advantage to the environment), but on utilising technology to replace traditional methods, processes and work-flow in a legal office.
Read the introductory post on 5 point guide to digitise an Advocate's office.
ADVANTAGES OF DIGITISATION
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Your entire office will always be at your fingertips – quite literally. With a tap on your phone, you can instantly access any document, be it a rejoinder in an old file or a judgment you read long ago.
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The notes on your files or judgments will be saved on all your devices forever.
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Once the work process in office is digitised, you can work from any place with the same experience as that of your office desk.
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Not only the advocate, even the clerical staff can perform most of their tasks remotely. Thus, the office work processes can be performed uninterruptedly even if your stenographer or clerk is on leave.
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The entire work-flow from receiving documents from the client to filing can be coordinated without any requirement of personal interaction.
SCOPE OF THE BLOG
Though I briefly deal with advantages of each digital process, please note that this blog is not on 'why' you should digitise your office. After all, it is a personal subjective decision. This blog is on 'how' to digitise your office. Where does one start in such a pursuit? What are the problems and solutions? What are the possible costs? etc.
The overall scheme of the blog is aimed at providing a comprehensive methodology for digitization. However, if you don’t want to go fully digital, you may selectively implement a method on a smaller scale depending on your requirement.
Let me clarify that I neither created any new software nor did I commission any custom-built technology. I merely explored a pattern to work with generally available technology in the context of a legal office in India. If you are an expert in the field or use advanced methods at the same cost and simplicity, please excuse me if you find my views elementary. In the latter case, I will be happy if you can share your methods with me. Read the post on 'How tech-savvy should you be to digitise your legal office?'
SCHEME OF THE BLOG
Office Digitisation is not merely about scanning all your files or learning usage of new software/ apps. Long term digitisation can only be achieved through a systematic and gradual process.
Therefore, I have divided the journey towards digitisation into several phases (Office 1.0, Office 2.0, and so on). In each phase, I narrated the course of the journey, hyperlinking important articles/ posts at appropriate juncture.
Unless you already implement advanced digitisation methods in your office, I recommend you to proceed with this blog in 'The Journey' section to get an understanding of each phase.
Once you are comfortable with the scope of each phase in 'The Journey' section, you can refer to posts independently under 'Blog Posts', where new posts are periodically updated. If you wish to be automatically updated when a new post is added, you can subscribe with your email ID.
Please note that I am not promoting any specific hardware or software when I indicate them in this blog. My stress is only on the method and not on any particular device or software. There are multiple alternatives of hardware and software for all tasks. Please choose your preferred technology based on your subjective satisfaction.
