Speed and productivity are competitive differentiators in the legal industry. Every minute spent on non-billable work translates to an expense instead of revenue. As document-intensive enterprises, excessive paperwork can be a real threat to law firm profitability. Recent research reveals lawyers spend only 30 percent of their workday on billable work, translating to only 2.4 hours out of an 8-hour work day, with other types of work, mainly administrative, absorbing a large share of the rest.

It's clear that most law firms still have work to do when it comes to improving lawyers' productivity. The challenge is to do this without compromising stringent client and case confidentiality mandates. Documents and document-related processes offer ample opportunities to advance these dual ends, and here are three proven techniques that law firms can apply:

Document capture and workflow solutions transform manual, disconnected, error-prone processes into streamlined, fast and secure automated processes. Documents can be instantaneously captured from multifunction printers, emails, office scanners and mobile devices, and delivered to a variety of endpoints, including enterprise content management systems (ECMs), ERP systems, case and client folders, the cloud and other document repositories.

Current document capture and workflow solutions are aligning with growing trends, including cloud-based ECM, increased mobile device use in the workplace and perhaps most of all, greater reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). According to ILTA's 2018 Technology Survey, 100 percent of the largest firms noted they are pursuing AI projects, and more than a third said they have one or more AI or ML tools currently in production.

AI and ML applied to document capture and workflows can intelligently identify certain information in documents (for example, specific case files) and route these accordingly. But AI and ML can help in other significant ways, such as identifying and automatically redacting clients' personally identifiable information. This means that even if a document accidentally falls into the wrong hands, sensitive information contained therein remains concealed.

Today's lawyers and their information streams are moving more quickly than in the past, introducing more opportunity for human error and sensitive data compromises. Generally, the more an organization replaces manually applied security measures with automation, the less likely an accidental data exposure is to occur. Automation takes undue responsibilities and pressures away from lawyers so they can focus on client service.

PDF creation and editing are indispensable to lawyers in several ways. Daily, lawyers are writing detailed analyses, statements and contracts that must not be read by outside parties. PDFs are ideal for delivering this kind of information protection, as PDF software on the market today enables encryption, redaction and password protection. This means that a lawyer can feel safe having colleagues review a document, even if certain details must be kept private. PDFs also help lawyers be more organized through text searchability, making it easy to find documents as opposed to spending time rummaging through paperwork.

Another significant benefit is that the more a law firm relies on PDFs the less reliant they become on paper. This is a good thing from a data protection perspective because paper documents are intrinsically less secure given the risk of being misplaced or lost.

Increased reliance on PDFs may make some lawyers cringe because editing PDFs has traditionally been perceived as challenging. However, there are PDF editing tools available enabling lawyers to manipulate content just as easily as Word documents—including merging documents, re-arranging pages, adding and replacing images, changing text and adding new form fields. These tools support multiuser collaboration, enabling numerous employees to securely open and work on documents in real-time while maintaining version control, helping avoid unnecessary delays as documents are edited and amended by multiple parties.

Standardizing on a single PDF editing tool across the firm enhances data security further by reducing the risks associated with “shadow IT.” When lawyers download and use their own choice of solution, it becomes much harder for IT teams to know what exactly is being used and proactively patch vulnerabilities.

Secure multifunction printers (MFPs) protect clients' data from falling into the wrong hands. Most people find it easier to absorb complex, long-form content on paper than a computer screen, and studies have shown that when engaging in “deep reading”—long, linear text over multiple pages—it is easier to concentrate on a printed medium. Despite greater adoption of digital documents, some physical paper will always persist within law firms, leading some to modify their goal of being completely paper-free to “paper-light.”

However, unmanaged MFPs can create a significant data confidentiality risk, especially through “orphaned” print jobs—those that are executed but then forgotten and accidentally left and exposed on a print tray. An estimated 30 percent of print jobs in the typical enterprise are never retrieved, and according to Ponemon Institute, 60 percent of organizations have had a data breach involving printers.

Lawyers should be able to continue freely printing documents, but it is critical to address this MFP data security gap. There are numerous techniques available to help law firms achieve this, such as “follow me” printing, which holds print jobs in a secure queue until lawyers (or clerical workers) authenticate and validate their physical presence at the device for a job to be released.

Incorporating digital workflows, PDF software and secure printing into a law firm's daily operations offers tremendous advantages, including more time for billable work, and giving workers more control and reducing job stress. However, lawyers cannot be expected to become excellent technologists and productivity masters without the right tools. Streamlining, automating and securing documents and document-related processes can pay huge dividends in amplifying productivity while upholding extremely high ethical standards for data confidentiality.

Stacy Leidwinger, VP of Product, leads the team driving product innovation within Nuance's Document Imaging Division, now part of Kofax. She oversees the product roadmap and all phases of the product lifecycle with the goal of planning, launching and managing best of breed software products.