THE PAPERLESS LAW FIRM - FACT OR FICTION?

Saturday, 19 July 2008 8:16PM

THE PAPERLESS LAW FIRM - FACT OR FICTION?

THE PAPERLESS LAW FIRM - FACT OR FICTION?

“We recently almost lost a large contract with a well known high street bank because we didn’t have a sufficiently Paperless Debt Recovery operation. So we ordered ImageRouter - we won’t risk loosing any more business because of paper!” Linetime customer.

Scanning a document or photograph is not a difficult task, nor is attaching this image to a computer file for easy reference later, the challenge lies in the efficiency and security of the process and how you monitor the delivery and storage of all the thousands of scanned documents.

Linetime’s ImageRouter software solves all these problems delivering tangible benefits to a rapidly growing number of users, especially within the niche markets of volume Debt Recovery, Conveyancing and Re-Mortgaging. Files are distributed quickly and efficiently either directly to individuals or to a central point. Multiple users can, if allowed, examine the same files simultaneously across the network (which may be multi-office) thereby saving enormous amounts of time and money. Another significant advantage of ImageRouter is that files never get lost.

One of Linetime’s well known users of their award winning Debt Recovery software (DebtimeSQL) commented, “ImageRouter has made a significant difference to the overall efficiency of our debt recovery business. We deal with thousands of matters every week, each one generating forests of paper. However, we now have a system where nothing ever gets lost, key information about all cases is just a key stroke away and can be shared between colleagues, irrespective of where they are. The result is that we can now increase our workload without increasing our fixed costs, we offer a better service to our clients and we save a fortune in being able to store hard copy files off-site. All in all while we don’t have a Paperless office, we certainly now have a Lesspaper one thanks to ImageRouter.”

As Tony Klejnow, the Linetime MD said; “We believe that the paperless office concept has been slow to take off because of a lack of control within a busy legal environment, where documents are often varied and of large volume. Therefore we have taken a slightly different and what we think is a more practical approach, starting with the view that the physical scanning is up to the user. Clients can buy a scanner from their hardware supplier and organise the best way to scan the in-coming post themselves. We or more precisely our software ImageRouter takes over once the images have been scanned.

ImageRouter consists of two essential elements. The first is a program that allows the images to be electronically delivered to the appropriate person’s desk within the firm and the second is a pickup system that allows the receivers to accept or reject the delivered items.

Once delivered ImageRouter allows the user to marry documents and images to cases quickly and easily utilising all the standard Liberate search and look-up functions. In a typical installation such as a volume debt recovery, conveyancing or re-mortgaging department, each user’s system will check for received items at designated periods e.g. every 10 minutes. If items are found then a window pops up listing the new deliveries. The recipient will check that the items are theirs and if they are attached to a case, that it’s the right one? One significant advantage of ImageRouter is that if the post can’t be identified it can be re-directed to a central manager for allocation.