In the past, the law stipulated that lawyers must keep hard copies of documents for seven years, which explains some of the resistance against relying purely on electronic files. The survey found the dominant reasons for using hard copies was force of habit, with legal requirements running a close second. It sampled 100 Australian law firms with fewer than 300 employees, and discovered astonishing results.Īccording to the survey, 80 per cent of law firms still printed all or most of the documents they received electronically, while 79 per cent use hard copies when exchanging documents with other firms. To get an idea of how attached lawyers are to paper, document-management company Fuji Xerox commissioned a study called Paper Still the Rule for Australian Law Firms. In part this is down to habit, but there are also key legal ramifications for using hard copy – in particular, the notion that electronic copies can be tampered with. Paper use is dying hard in the law office. While electronic records provide the security that crucial information is backed up should something happen to your office, can online legal documents fulfil the same evidentiary requirements and benefits as paper copies? Are legal records worth the paper they’re written on? Electronic documents and records are replacing their paper counterparts in many sectors, but the legal industry is taking longer to adapt.
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