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July 20, 2004
The meaning of "drowning them in paper"
I just came across Screaming Bean talking about work and she mentioned something that's always driven me crazy, not only in an environmental sense but in an efficiency sense.
However, I have to give over copies of all the cases I pulled. Seeing as how I was saving trees to this point, I have no copies. Lawyers, the worst environmentalists ever. So I'll spend about an hour with the trusty printers and produce utter tripe.
One of the beautiful things about Westlaw/Lexis-Nexis is the ability to copy-and-paste oh so meaningful passages from your favorite cases into blank documents as you do research. That way, all your research for Case X will be contained in one file that is easily found and accessed. You can highlight, add notes, underline, bold, italicize. You can emphasize ids 'til you go blind. There's no need to dig through the stacks of crap that already litter your desk, filing cabinet, and table. It's all in there. You can print your research document if you need to, you can email it to the lawyer you're doing the research for, you can even paste those juicy judicial quotes into your briefs and memos.
When I see one of my fellow clerks printing a 70 page ALR entry and then spend another 15 minutes binding it for easy page-turning, it really does drive me crazy. Nevermind the 5 minutes it takes to print or the binding time. There's even more time to be wasted when that clerk actually finds a case he needs. Hell, he's gonna print that one, too, instead of clicking on the friendly link in the ALR and then downloading the case.
The Big Boss keeps talking about a paperless office by 2006. Only if he lets his entire staff go and hires all 22 year-old ex-techies.
Posted by Half-Cocked at July 20, 2004 10:19 PM