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36 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | S P R I N G 2 0 2 2 • Adapt to Change The COVID-19 pandemic affected all businesses. What solutions can law firms put in place that will have an immediate impact and enduring value to address environmental and systemic threats? Applying Design Thinking to a Specific Problem: Paper-based Mail and Records We are in an age of rapid digital transformation, yet many firms are still being held back by one thing: paper. A primary source of paper in the law firm is the postal mail in the mailroom. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the law firm's physical space and sent the workforce home, firms had to adapt so because the postal mail must be processed. The methods used to deliver daily mail were rapidly cobbled together and they have allowed law firms to get by during the COVID-19 pandemic, but as presently constructed, they are not long-term solutions, because they were never designed to be. Similarly, a hybrid workforce of in-house and at-home attorneys cannot be supported securely or efficiently when records room workflows are paper-based. Clients expect their law firms to be productive and secure, but attorneys cannot be productive when file requests can take hours or days. Attorneys using paper files in their home offices simply isn't a sustainable practice. Creating a digital mailroom and digital records room, as a best practice, reduces a law firm's costly and inefficient paper footprint. The results are essential digital workflows that are better by design. It's now a must-have to keep attorneys and staff productive no matter if they are working from home, in a hybrid work environment, or working in the office. Key Stakeholder Requirements In design thinking, identifying the key stakeholders is the first step in being able to properly create innovative solutions for them. For digital mailrooms and digital records rooms, the key stakeholders are security officers, attorneys, mailroom operators, and records managers. CISO: Security Legal mail items contain sensitive client information. The quick and easy fix conjured up during the pandemic of scan- to-email puts client information at risk. The weakest point of security and compliance in the lifecycle of matter documents and client information is from sending documents as file attachments in an email message. Specifically: • You lose confidentiality When you send a confidential file via email, there is no way to prevent it from being shared inappropriately. Even with an explicit declaration F E A T U R E S "Attorneys using paper files in their home offices simply isn't a sustainable practice."

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