Tarter, Krinsky & Drogin
Tarter, Krinsky & Drogin
The legal industry is defined by precision, with each move made by law firms and legal professionals determined by well-defined rules of engagement. It is meticulously documented by an army of paralegals and legal assistants and as a result, law firms are buried under a veritable mountain of paperwork.
Based in New York, this mid-size law firm employs 75 lawyers and an equal number of support staff. One of those is Rommell R. Maxwell, who administers the IT systems at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin that underpin its important legal work. Surprisingly, given Maxwell is an IT manager, much of his time is occupied by processing paper records from the firm’s activity.
“We have a tremendous amount of paper from legal cases,” he explained. This proliferation of paper has forced the company to find an efficient way to process all of this paperwork. “We have an increasing need to scan [documents] and start a record keeping and management process,” he explained, adding that parts of the office containing document scanners were increasingly congested by staffers trying to digitize records.
While the organization was utilizing Worldox, easy-to-use document and email management software, to alleviate the sheer amount of paperwork, they had just four scanners which were always very much in-demand. “Employees had to find a scanner that wasn’t in use, and then they’d have to log-in to a terminal and then at the scanner itself. It wasn’t particularly elegant.”
Another flaw with this system was they were ill-suited to process different formats of documents, like the expense receipts submitted by attorneys. This forced staffers to affix receipts to standard A4 pieces of paper, in order to allow the machine to successfully scan them.
This wasn’t an ideal situation, but things changed when the company was introduced to the ScanSnap scanner series through Worldox and gradually started deploying the line of cloud document scanners across the organization. Now, around thirty ScanSnap scanners are dotted around Tarter Krinsky & Drogin’s office, used primarily by administrative assistants and paralegals. The impact was almost immediately felt.
“Productivity for our staff has increased. There’s no more waiting at the copier,” he explained, adding that employees could now scan documents straight from their desk rather than wait at a large document scanning machine and attorneys no longer had to glue receipts to paper or cardboard when processing their expenses. And, as an added bonus, the ScanSnap scanners integrated directly with the Worldox software that Tarter Krinsky & Drogin was already using for easy profiling and storage of scanned files.
“[The scanner] is so versatile. It scans everything, from little tiny yellow cab receipts, all the way up to invoices and everything else. Wills and documents. Signed contracts. Business cards. This process is useful to attorneys, who can import contacts straight into Evernote after a conference,” Maxwell explained.
Product Features
- Touch screen controls
- Wi-Fi or USB
- Links to cloud and mobile devices
- Customizable profiles
- Easy Personal Information Management
- Plays well with others (up to 4 separate sets of user profiles)
Note that the ScanSnap iX1600 model supersedes the ScanSnap iX1500 model
ScanSnap® iX1600
Beyond improved productivity, the adoption of ScanSnap document scanners has also allowed Tarter Krinsky & Drogin to find savings elsewhere in the business.
“Three months from now, we will be able to eliminate about four or five hundred bucks from our storage costs,” said Maxwell. This will come from eliminating some offsite document storage costs, where Tarter Krinsky & Drogan pays third-parties to securely hold static documents for record keeping and compliance reasons. These savings, he adds, will likely increase as time goes on.
And because Tarter Krinsky & Drogan has digitized much of its working documents, it’s now easier to retrieve them from their shared storage. This has improved client satisfaction.
“If a client asks for a document, or if we have to produce a document on a client’s behalf, there’s no longer a delay caused by waiting for records to be pulled. We have much faster access to those documents. This means there’s greater efficiency and greater service towards the client,” Maxwell said.
The adoption of the ScanSnap units has also reduced the pressure on the law firm’s IT department, who have to deal with fewer scanner-related issues. Maxwell also added that because the ScanSnap is designed to be straightforward to use, the in-house IT department hasn’t needed to offer much training to employees, and troubleshooting requests are limited.
ScanSnap has been a massive, proven success for Tarter Krinsky & Drogan. It has resulted in improved efficiency within the organization and has allowed the law firm to save money on their day-to-day operating costs, by scaling back their offsite storage. It’s also reduced the pressure on the company’s IT team.
And so popular is the tool, some Tarter Krinsky & Drogan employees have bought their own models.
“I use one at home, too,” Maxwell admitted.