Have you ever had to scramble around to find an important document that is buried underneath a sea of paperwork on your desk?
As per findings of Gartner, Inc., as much as 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, filing, storing and maintaining files of information. What’s more, the average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year and 50% of the waste of businesses is composed of paper.
With the number of documents legal departments have to deal with on a daily basis, going paperless will not only save time that is otherwise spent searching and retrieving information, but it will also help reduce costs and mitigate security risks associated with paper-based processes.
Here are 5 tips for your legal department to go paperless.
1. Digitise the workflows of your legal department
Ask yourself and your colleagues which processes tend to “break out” into paper, who is responsible, and why does this happen? Once you audit the workflows, use your findings to map out a workflow that will allow you to gain control of your legal affairs. Better yet, legal management software like Legisway offer a completely paperless workflow, allowing you to increase productivity and efficiency since no processes are interrupted by the need to print out papers and store them in filing cabinets.
2. Share information digitally
Adopt systems that allow you to share your information digitally. In theory, all corporate legal departments likely already have the resources to make the move to a paperless office, like a computer, scanner, and hard drive. More advanced systems are not only secure but are equipped with eSignatures and alerts to help you effectively manage your legal risks and speed up approval time.
3. Initiate a clean desk policy
Not only does this prevent employees from leaving documents containing sensitive information on their desks, but it also eliminates clutter. In order to make the policy work, provide lockable storage and paper shredders.
4. Manage you meeting information digitally
You can manage your meeting agendas and minutes with controlled access and share confidential information securely, by adopting a software with a tool to track and manage your organisation’s meeting from agenda creation to follow up.
5. Manage your contracts digitally
If there’s one activity in corporate legal departments that uses a lot of paper, it’s printing out all those contracts. Fortunately, legal management software like Legisway, offer entirely digital workflows for creating, approving and managing contracts. What’s more, integration with an eSignature tool like DocuSign, drastically reduces the time it takes to collect a signature, without ever having to print the copy for approval.
Benefits of going paperless are too many. By going paperless, not only can your legal team can increase productivity, improve response time and reduce document-related costs – (not to mention that it is environmentally friendly!) but you can also mitigate risks including those related to compliance proactively.
