The impact of document scanning and imaging on the practice of litigation cannot be underestimated. The entire process of "discovery"--when lawyers are searching for evidence--has grown to include more and more sources of information, rather than just physical files. Scanned files, for instance, are much a part of the modern courtroom.
That has happened--and will continue to happen--because scanning documents makes good business sense in so many ways: cost savings, efficiency improvements, records backup.
Some law firms specifically focus on ferreting out evidence found in non-paper formats.
Unfortunately, some companies don't discover how much the process of discovery has changed until they're being sued and a pack of lawyers is combing not only through their filing cabinets, but through their hard drives, and their online storage capabilities, and their emails.
More information means more evidence. Obviously, whether that helps or hurts your company depends on what's contained in those scanned documents. If you're a doctor being sued for malpractice, for example, keeping good records can save your career.
What is sure to potentially hurt your company is not thinking about how retaining scanned documents could play into any lawsuits that may come in the future.
Thinking ahead in this area is a part of doing business in this Information Age. Some third-party document imaging services are quite savvy at coming up with solutions to this concern.
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