Paper, pixel and process

In last month’s article I reported some of the outcomes of research into the modes of communication used by British solicitors, primarily the differences in usage patterns and destinations of paper and electronic correspondence. One of the conclusions was that the majority of correspondence happens within the private sector, yet it is often the high profile, and typically expensive, electronic communication platforms deployed by public sector institutions which receive the most attention.

Financial considerations are clearly one reason to adopt electronic communication options. However, there are a number of other reasons why electronic communication will be increasingly important to the legal sector. The data in this article are from a quantitative survey of 200 British solicitors in the private and public sectors (34% response rate). The attitudinal survey was conducted using Likert scales, in which respondents rated their agreement to certain statements in five categories (from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree).

Trends and attitudes

Like any sector, cultural change affects the legal profession as young people enter it with different attitudes compared to some of their older colleagues leaving the profession. In the area of communication, current graduates tend to have a less formal and more interactive communication style than the departing generation, typified by more frequent but briefer correspondence. It is natural for them to carry this over, albeit in a (hopefully) moderated form, into their professional lives, and therefore to express a preference for the expedience of an email over the palpability of a letter.

Environmentalism is another long term societal trend affecting the profession’s correspondence choices. The survey showed that three quarters of solicitors are concerned about the environmental impact of their printing and paper use, and over half hold similar concerns about the transport of paper correspondence (figure 1). New graduates entering the profession would be expected to have more zealous ideals influencing their attitude to these issues than those retiring out of the profession, thereby strengthening the long term trend.

As strongly held as the environmental views, it seems solicitors find paper correspondence has an additional impact on the ease with which they conduct their day-to-day business: 74% reported that retrieving paper documents slows down their work, and 72% reported that they would like to reduce the amount of paper in their office (40% “Strongly Agreeing” with that statement). Clearly the legal sector is information-driven, so it would appear that most solicitors find paper-based information slower to use and less desirable than, presumably, electronic information. The survey also found that over 60% of solicitors would like to send and receive fewer documents on paper.

Interestingly, attitudes to paper use don’t vary much with organisational size, but do so in what is at first a counter-intuitive way: solicitors in smaller law firms are very slightly keener to reduce paper in their office than their counterparts in larger organisations. Explanations for this might be that larger organisations are more likely to use electronic filing systems, or because of the type of work they carry out (for example, they are much more likely to practise commercial law which, as we saw in the first article, is a practice area that makes relatively little use of paper correspondence).

Other drivers

In addition to increasing workplace efficiency, there are non-economic factors driving the sector towards reducing paper correspondence. Indeed, interviews with legal IT managers revealed that progressive firms employ a “less paper” (compared to “paper-less”) philosophy not only to achieve higher productivity and direct cost savings. “Less paper” is seen as the best-practice way to mitigate several important business risks – namely malicious and accidental data loss – and the only practical way to provide business continuity and disaster recovery. Not only can electronic files be secured and tracked, and very narrow permissions granted only to those who need access: electronic data also take up no space, can be continuously and securely duplicated offsite, and can be instantly retrieved from anywhere in the world in the event of a disaster. These aspects will be increasingly important as UK regulations come into force requiring firms to enact a business continuity plan, which will include disaster recovery.

Another key perceived advantage of electronic correspondence over paper is that there is an increasing demand from employees, employers and clients for flexible working locations and times (i.e. at home or working at clients’ sites), and electronic files make this far more practical.

For these attitudinal reasons, and the economic ones covered in the previous article, it is not hard to see why the 2009 Lord Gill report into the future of the Scottish courts concluded that the majority of the submissions they received called for a greater use of email by the courts. However, despite its low (zero) cost, high speed and ease of use, email is perceived to be far from the ideal communication method for the legal profession due to its reliability and confidentiality issues.

The next article will look at these key issues of reliability and confidentiality, the specific requirements of the legal profession, and provide some insights into the requirements for a next-generation electronic communication platform for the legal profession. Readers may rest assured that the answer is not simply “encrypted email” – at least in its current guise.

• Dr Michael Fielding (michael.fielding@read4sure.com) conducted a study on communication in the British legal sector with the University of Edinburgh Business School between May 2009 and February 2010, assisted by the Law Society of Scotland and the Law Society of England & Wales. He is presently managing director of read4sure Ltd, who are developing a “business-friendly” secure communication platform called Wiremail (www.wire-mail.com).

For charts and diagrams please refer to the magazine or download the PDF