GoMatters document and file sharing provides secure links for your GoMatters documents that you can then share with non-GoMatters users. That means no more emailing and or copying documents to clients, just generate a secure link and share it.

Document share links are secure and can be set to expire after a certain number of clicks or after an expiration date. You can set a link to expire after 1 click if you like or in 2 weeks time, it’s all up to you. The system is designed to be as flexible as you need to be. All clicks are logged and available for you to view from within your account.

Learn more about GoMatters document and file sharing:

• Document Storage
• Document Sharing
• How to share documents and files
• How to edit document and file shares
• How to disable document and file shares

Taking a few simple steps to reduce your paper output will go a long way. Storing your documents in GoMatters is an obvious first step, but once the document has been stored in the cloud, what else can be done to cut down on the paper associated with that document.

Think “copying”. As lawyers, we can do some copying. Some lawyers make more money off their copier than they do on total hourly fees. But copies generate paper which takes up space… and on and on and on.

One technique is to stop the copying right away. Once a document is scanned, don’t copy it, toss it all over the place in electronic format via email but try not to copy it again. Obviously that will help, but how about not even storing that document in the physical file folder to begin with? One place this technique works great is with general correspondence that must be forwarded to clients. The usual practice is to make a copy of the original and send the copy to the client and store the original in the file.

If you can, try to scan the original document, store that in your GoMatters account and send the original to the client with your traditional cover letter making only a copy of the cover letter for the physical file and print the document reference as listed in your GoMatters account on a single sheet of paper and attach the document reference sheet to the cover letter for the physical file. Anyone back tracking through the physical file will see the correspondence with your GoMatters document reference sheet attached indicating the attachment sent with the original letter is stored in your firm’s GoMatters account and can be found there.

Even in a small office, this technique can save reams of paper. If you send 10 general correspondence letters daily (a very small amount indeed) with attachments that average 10 pages in size, that’s 110 pieces of paper for daily correspondence (10 letters plus 10 attachments at 10 sheets). Using this simple paper reduction technique will cut that 110 sheets of paper to 20! Multiply your savings out over the course of the week and you’ve already saved 1 ream of paper with this ridiculously simple paper saver. Think about the physical file space you’ll save in a week, month or year if you’re office is eliminating at least 90 sheets of paper daily.

To print a document reference sheet for documents stored in your GoMatters account, select the document to reference from the document list using the checkbox for the selected document row and then click the Print button from the document list to print your reference.

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!

Tracking files by year fits perfectly with the idea that after a certain year, files of a certain vintage can be destroyed to make room for new files that will inevitably clog the file cabinets for another 10 years or so.

Year based file numbering systems for law offices also correlate loosely to numbering systems set by courts that traditionally number new cases with some form of date notation. For example, cases started in 2010 may have a case number like 2010-XX-XXXX.

As lawyers move toward digital files and the paperless law office, the idea of expunging files to make room for new files becomes unimportant. SaaS solutions for lawyers like GoMatters are helping to obviate the need for physical storage space and offer the possibility of limitless data storage accessible in a few clicks.

Most lawyers find themselves unnecessarily duplicating the work of numbering files or cases because law offices, for the most part, are reactionary, meaning the law office reacts to cases that have actually been generated in other places like the court. Ask yourself, if the court already has an elaborate case number assigned to a matter, why are you worried about how you are going to number the same case for your office? Why not just use the case number assigned by the court for your own internal office number?

Don’t you hate the “Our file number:”, “Your file number:” in all those RE: clauses of letters? Isn’t it time to stop that? Do it now, it is a new year after all.

GoMatters allows you to enter any matter number you like and will even automatically assign a matter number for you. But if you just use the case number assigned by the court for matter numbers, it will help you track your cases faster and more efficiently by reducing your need to duplicate lookups of other case numbers. It can also increase your law office efficiency by cutting out the “Our file number:”, “Your file number:” dance.

But what happens when you open a case in GoMatters and have no case number from a court yet? The best practice when opening a new matter that has yet to be assigned a case number by a court would be to use the client name as the matter number or choose the “Auto Assign” checkbox when adding the matter so that GoMatters will create a matter number for you. Once you file the case with the court, double click the Matter Number cell in the Matters Tab and change the old matter number to the new matter number assigned by the court. By synchronizing your internal law office file and case numbers with the court file and case numbers, you can streamline your file numbering system and make your law office more efficient in the new year.

We’ve added automatic event notice emails to GoMatters so you can email an event notice to any matter contact with the press of a button. Login into your GoMatters case mangement account and you will notice the “Email Notice” option on the “Add Event” dialog. Selecting the “Yes” option for emailing notices allows you to customize the email addresses to which GoMatters will send a short event notice. You can also pull up a quick list of all matter contact email addresses by selecting the “All Matter Contacts” option. Add any additional email addresses for the event notice separated by a comma.

Recipients of the event notice will receive a short email notice of the event details of date, time and place that they can easily add to their own calendars. The GoMatters event email also contains a Google Maps link to the event place.

The GoMatters servers are made to maximize the speed and efficiency at which your law office data can be stored, accessed and distributed. Storing your data on your local networks and maintaining those networks is an inefficient use of both your time and energy… and energy consumption! An inefficient data center or server like the one in your law office increases your office energy needs and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

GoMatters allows your law practice to cut down on physical data storage space in your office that can be used for other things besides housing clunky, loud servers. By centralizing computer processing power in our data centers, economies of scale are achieved and overall power consumption is reduced.

The “paperless law office” is as far from reality as a flying car, but GoMatters can help green your office by reducing paper consumption. Your case files may never be totally paperless, but you can certainly reduce the size of the files by storing your contacts, tasks and events in GoMatters. Creating an easily accessible digital case file with GoMatters is one easy step you can make towards making your law office green.