Being Paperless, or Just Less Paper...

*Please note this post was written pre-quarantine.

With all this technology, it goes without saying that most businesses and a lot of households are “paperless.”  We communicate virtually (emails, texts, apps) and so much “recording” of things goes on via digital/paperless systems.  We don’t need cash, checks, and even credit cards are being replaced by a swipe on the phone. And as far as work is concerned, many workplaces keep all of their data and records online or on a cloud.

In the legal world, going “paperless” has its benefits.  One can imagine the stacks of paper involved when it comes to legal proceedings.  Evidence, contracts, pleadings, correspondence, expert reports, case law, statutes...and the list goes on.  When I first started practicing things were just going towards a more paperless system. Digital faxing and scanning incoming documents and correspondence was cutting edge.  But attorneys still had giant paper files that filled up boxes and boxes that somehow we would drag all the way to court. It made no sense. So I was more than excited to have digital files that I could review on a computer screen versus carrying boxes to my car and lifting and carrying them back to my house.  No thank you!

Now that I am doing some legal work again, working remotely and doing everything on my phone and computer, I am constantly battling between paper vs paperless.  I can review all my files online and I draft all my documents on the computer. There should be no need for me to have to print anything out! But somehow, I am going old school and I am printing out the documents I want to review,  I am jotting down all my notes and outlines on paper (notepads even), I am reading and highlighting everything by hand, and then once that is all done I sit down and draft everything on the computer. The result is that for every case that I work on, I have a mini-file printed out at home.  I should probably just throw away those papers after I am done with the project, but I am scared to! Somehow I want to hold on to these papers in case I need to review them again for further issues. I shouldn’t need to since I have done all the work and drafted documents I can just re-review.  But I think that my thinking process now just involves actual paper. I don’t think this is as efficient and cost/waste effective as it could be, but for now this is what’s been working. It’s one of those things that I am not sure if I need to push a change or if I should just keep the system if it works for me.