Omtool Survey Reveals That 69% of Law Firms Are Actively Digitizing Client Records

Global News

29
Jan
2016

Editor

But Only 35% Have Tackled Records Room Scanning

Omtool™, Ltd., the trusted provider of document capture, fax and workflow solutions, announced today the results of the survey “Patterns and Trends in Digitizing Client Records at Law Firms.”  

Conducted by ALM, the survey polled legal professionals to uncover trends in legal records scanning including whether firms were scanning, to what extent, what drove these initiatives, and what their future plans were.

“Since a number of law firms have recently approached us to help with records room scanning projects, we were interested in benchmarking law firms’ progress and experience with digitizing client records,” explained Karen Cummings, Executive Vice President at Omtool.  “The survey’s findings showed that 69% of firms were already scanning at least some records.  However, only 35% of them were scanning both current and historical records – most firms’ digitizing initiatives were limited to only current records.  That means that 65% of respondents had yet to face the final frontier of records scanning:  digitizing the records room.”

More than 100 people responded to the survey including law firm attorneys and records management/IT professionals.  86% of respondents were involved with records management as decision makers/influencers or were users of the scanning solution itself. 

More key survey findings included:

• The top four reasons law firms were investing in records scanning included immediate access to records, reduction of storage expenses, desire to be as digital as possible, and reduction of storage requirements.
• Five of the greatest benefits attributed to implementing a digitized document scanning solution were increased efficiency, lower costs, improved attorney/staff productivity, establishing a paperless office/full digital automation, and improved client responsiveness.
• Nearly 75% of firms were using their own full-time employees to complete scanning in-house.
• 32% of firms stored paper records in an onsite records room.  Only 13% stored all paper records in an off-site facility while the remainder used a combination of both.
• Almost 50% said vendor reputation was important when considering records digitizing solutions. There was no vendor which dominated the records scanning market.

Karen Cummings remarked, “Based on years of experience in the legal market, Omtool is in a unique position to support law firms as they resolve to conquer the final frontier of records scanning. Omtool extends on-demand capture infrastructures to provide customized production capture solutions required for records scanning initiatives.”