Paperless & Remote working

Enter 2020, and more specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most organizations, including law firms, were immediately forced into a remote working environment. An anticipated two-week deviation has stretched into several months with no defined end date. Many firms quickly adapted to the virtual working environment and have recognized significant benefits. As such, the motivation for a digital culture has never been greater and employees’ desire to work remotely will not fade. However, without proper IG guidance, work from home users may create a significant risk to the firm by sending, storing or accessing data in repositories not acceptable to clients. They may also create a significant security and/or privacy risk to the firm by not properly securing data even within their own private residences.

In order to capitalize on the momentum created by the pandemic, IG departments need to respond quickly for a firm’s cultural change to be successful and enduring. They need to address existing and potent new challenges, including printing at home, accessing documents which are only maintained in paper, and identifying/sourcing technology that helps make the digital transition more efficient.

A key component of digital culture is the reduction of paper records when legally permissible. The costs to generate paper records are dwarfed by the costs of its maintenance and storage. The reduction in paper usage has minimal impact on digital storage costs since the majority of information is born digital. When justifying a paper-light environment through the lens of cost reduction, the IG practitioner should consider factors such as onsite/ offsite storage, equipment and supplies, personnel requirements, and the need to have a thorough understanding of costs and challenges of service delivery in a remote, distributed work environment.

To read other reports written by the law firm information governance symposium, please visit: symposium.ironmountain.com

Operating in a paper-light environment has a variety of cost-related benefits for a law firm, whereas others are risk-related. The efficiency created by digital files for cross-office trans-global legal/client teams is not as easily quantified. The COVID-19 work paradigm has highlighted the preference and need to make this “normal.”

While it is true that working at home has reduced the amount of documents printed, we know that a percentage of every firm’s population is still very reliant on paper. Many lawyers and support personnel are more comfortable reviewing documents they can hold in their hands, making markup revisions directly on the paper. In addition, others do not use their computer to read email but rather print everything, choosing to rely on a complete physical file. Printing documents when working from home can put your firm and its clients at risk. How then, do we ensure the security of printed material outside of our brick and mortar offices?