Routing Digital Documents in Your Paperless Office

I’ve had so many requests over the last year or so concerning our internal process for scanning paper that it is overwhelming. As you may recall, we receive all incoming mail and review it in paper form before scanning it. We tried scanning it first and sending it to a special folder, but that proved inadequate. The old adage "out of sight, out of mind" left too many scanned documents un-reviewed for too long.

So how do we deal with the conversion process of paper to PDF? First, the mail comes in. A staff member puts a document cover routing sheet on the mail which covers a variety of items including priority, calendaring, tasks, scanning options, server filing, routing (including by email, regular mail, fax, leap file), special instructions, opening of new clients in extranet and PCLaw, and any other activity or action item which comes out of the document. Because I am no longer anonymous, I am free to post our document cover routing sheet here Download Document_Cover_Routing_Sheet.doc (48.0K)

The whole goal is to make sure that every important task, event and routing path arising out of each and every document is handled comprehensively on the front end. Unlike most firms which simply place a sticky on incoming mail as it routes its way through to their secretary, we try and spend a lot of time with each piece of paper on the front end. If a piece of correspondence from opposing counsel suggests two new task categories and five new task items, I dictate those while I am filling out the routing cover sheet for uploading into the extranet. All tasks get assigned at the same time. If a piece of paper has to be sent to the client and the expert, the document cover routing sheet indicates as such.

By filling in the routing sheet completely and dictating tasks while reviewing the paper, we make sure that virtually nothing falls through the cracks.

Don’t hesitate to post questions or comments concerning the document cover routing sheet below.