Another new year is upon us and you’ve surely already laid down your traditional #1 New Year’s resolution for your law office: Make more money.
Where’s the fun in that resolution? New Year’s resolutions are supposed to be something that make you fight to continue something you really didn’t want to do in the first place… not doing something you’re dying to do like “Make more money”! Its time to make some new resolutions for your law office that will be important to streamlining your law office tasks and improving the overall performance of your law office. And If you stick to these 3 New Year’s resolutions, you’re more likely to succeed with your traditional, boring “Make more money” resolution, too.
#3 – Use Your Copier Less
For some offices, the copier is the cash cow. Billing for copies at more than .50 a page is a fair way to recoup your toner and paper costs, but do you really need to be wasting all that time making copies?
It’s 2011, if you don’t have a scanner, get one. Use your scanner instead of your copier whenever you can. Scanning and uploading documents to GoMatters can save you much more time and money than you ever imagined. Your current copy process goes something like this: walk over to the copier, copy the pages, fight with multiple paper jams during copy, count the pages when finished, type up a cover letter, insert copies with cover letter into an envelope, stamp the envelope, mail the envelope, bill for copies and postage, wait 3-5 days for a response.
Please. It’s 2011 for crying out loud! Scan and upload the documents to GoMatters, make one click to choose an email address from your GoMatters contacts list and email the digitized documents. Save yourself the hassle of your copy machine habits in the new year.
#2 – Use Your Fax Machine Less
There was a time when you couldn’t practice law without a fax machine and after you got your fax machine you wondered “How did I ever practice law without one of these?”.
The fax machine is a dying beast. Let’s kill it in 2011.
Fax machines are like money orders for people without checking accounts. You’ve probably got a checking account by now and you would be lost trying to figure out how to even purchase a money order. Email is your checking account. Write checks, don’t use money orders in 2011.
#1 – Use Less Paper
The holy grail of law office management is the “Paperless Law Office”. And like the holy grail, nobody really knows if the paperless law office exists, or if it exists, where it can found. However, there is no doubt that with a bit of planning you can reduce your paper use in your law office by incredible amounts and become the “Nearly Paperless Law Office” without much effort.
If you keep up with resolution #3 above, “Use Your Copier Less”, thereby scanning and uploading documents to GoMatters, you are already on your way to reducing your law office paper consumption significantly.
If there is one truism about paper, it is that paper begets paper. The more paper you use, the more paper you will use. That may sound like a Yogi Berra quote, but it’s true. If you make the first step and change just one element of your law office management paper trail, the following steps on the trail will be easier to digitize and / or eliminate.
Good luck on your resolutions and Happy New Year from GoMatters!