The Paper Office

I have a great idea to enhance the practice of law. This idea puts to use centuries of human knowledge and experience. It was used by the Chinese thousands of years ago. I am talking about having a “paper office”.

Why go paper? Simple. Say a letter comes in from opposing counsel. You have the other lawyer’s document there in your hands in black and white. You see in it in front of your eyes, as palpable as Lady Macbeth’s knife. Unlike scanned information, you can hold it in your hands. It is real.

And if you do a responding letter to said opposing counsel, just put some paper into your printer and off you go. The printer will spit out your letter in seconds and Bob’s your uncle. You then put the letter into another paper wonder, the envelope. Add a 52 cent stamp and you’re flying. Unlike emails, there is no risk of your letter not arriving because you wrote gordonSmith@ Jenkinssmith.com instead of gordon.smith@jenkinssmith.com. Electronic communication is anal. Leave out that one stupid dot and you’re chances of successfully sending your message are about as great as Dr. Kevorkian being nominated for the Nobel Prize for medicine.

And now you might ask, what do you do to store it? Easy. Put it into a 15 cent folder you can buy at Staples. And the folders come in an assortment of eye pleasing colours. I especially like yellow or green. And if there is a power blackout in your office, big deal. You can wave your 15 cent file folder at those techie geeks who are running around pulling out their hair searching for the back up disk.

Where do you put your file? The same place lawyers have been putting files for generations. In a spiffy metallic filing cabinet. They drawers come with handles. Pull and they open, push and they close. And of course you can file your file folders alphabetically. It really works. You put the Adams file first, then the Benson file, then the Carter file and so on. And if you mix up a filing or two the filing cabinet will never complain or give you a message such as, “you have performed an illegal operation”.

You can even lock the filing cabinet using guess what? A key. No fuss, no user names, no passwords necessary. Just put that little brass sucker into the keyhole and turn clockwise and the drawers shut. Counter clockwise and they open.

And when your filing cabinet fills up what do you do? No problem. Just transfer your closed files into another super proven invention. The cardboard box. It’s amazing how these boxes can hold a stack of files. And if you ever have to access any of them, just go to the box in question and open it and, Tah dah, there it is, in a spiffy green or yellow folder.

No blackberry for me. Give me paper and cardboard anytime.

Many lawyers are starting to appreciate simplicity and are looking for ways to add meaning to their practices. It will not be too long until we start seeing continuing education courses on technology with outlines as follows:

I’m ready to sign up. Let me just put some ink into my Mont Blanc.