Any tips for organizing files in a law office?

I am contractual paralegal, and I myself, am very organized...but this law office...not so much. They went through staff changes and the filing 'system' is CRAZY. I have been put in charge of organizing the files of 2 major cases (on top of my other research/case assignments). We are talking about THOUSANDS of documents. Of course, an electronic filing system would be the most efficient, but I simply don't have the time to convert that many hard copy documents. Any tips? Thanks.

CatLaw

You have quite a job on your hands. I have found that when dealing with a major case the index of what documents you do have and where they are located is crucial. I do the index in a word processor that lets me set up a table which will automatically alphbetize the document or I assign a numerical code to the document and sort by that.

The other issue, of course, is how do you handle all the documents. Try to group them by type of document, by date, then by client if the case has multiple clients.

The worst case that I ever was thrown in the middle of had 7 clients. We received 9 3 inch binders of discovery provided which covered subjects for all 7 clients. We had 25 separate depositions that were in there own individual binders. Plus each of the clients had documents --signed retainers, notes on their portion of the case, copies of their terminations, each one's human resources file, and other pages of evidence that were particular to each client.

I set up an identifying number for each client -- case# + client initials + sequence number -- which ended up being a date. Anything that pertained to the individual client had that type of number on it. Those things that pertained to the case in whole, I indicated by an "XX" in the client initials column. For the discovery binders I did an index and inserted page separators for each individual binder -- each document was given one of these numbers. The depositions were also numbered an kept in a cardboard box with an index sheet laid on top showing what was in the box. For the rest of the stuff I numbered and grouped by type of document. All retainers were together, all personnel files together, etc.. What I ended up with was individual indexes that I merged into a master index. Each attorney who worked on the case was given a copy of the master index each time it was updated.

Hope this helps.

toy*

You can try possibly color coding the folders (i.e. yellow for correspondence, blue for pleadings). Label each folder with the case name and case number if you use them. Possibly scan any documents that you use regularly and have to edit. I've worked in a small law office in the past and I feel your pain.

gfrog82

ALPHABETIZE, IN THE DOCTORS OFFICE WE TOO HAD THOUSANDS OF FILES THIS MIGHT HELP.

http://www.filingsystems.com/clrcode.htm

nick c

idk

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