It’s old news that no legal secretary with more than a week’s experience hands over an original letter, document, or grocery list to an attorney, lest said document be sucked into that bottomless vortex that is the attorney’s office, never to be seen again. And when the attorney needs the document weeks after she’s lost it, whom does she ask?

Yep!

So you’ve probably been in the habit of making attorney copies of everything, with the attorney’s name or initials written on the front page, so they can’t be confused with originals that should be placed in the file. That’s a better way of doing things; however, it has its own set of pitfalls:

• You’re murdering innocent trees, often for copies that never get used.
• The attorney hands you back her copy of something months after you gave it to her, and you must second-guess her as to why she thinks you need it. Is the original missing from the file? Did she highlight something on page 32? Did she make a note in the margin on page 157? Did she give you verbal instructions that you’ve forgotten (not that that ever happens, of course)? Or did she clean off her desk and mistake your desk for the garbage can? (That’ll teach you to leave banana peels and love notes from the copy guy lying around.)
• Because an attorney never throws anything away, her office periodically becomes piled floor to ceiling with copies of every piece of mail and every court filing that has arrived in the past decade. Guess who has to clean that up so she can see out her window again?

Thus, while making attorney copies of everything can save you tons of heartache, in a way, the practice actually makes more work for you rather than less. But, thanks to technology, I found a solution that works wonderfully for my attorneys. It just might work for yours, too.

The vast majority of mail my attorneys receive can be quickly read and doesn’t need a detailed review — routine motions, deposition notices, one-page transmittal letters. Printed copies aren’t needed. And, for the few items they do need hard copies of, they usually don’t need them immediately. Indeed, copies they receive before they need them are likely to be lost, which means I’ll just be making another attorney copy a week or so later.

The solution to this conundrum? PDFs.

Simply scan all incoming items to PDF and e-mail them to the attorney. If you work for a large or medium firm, you probably have technology already in place that makes scanning as easy as — or easier than — making paper copies. You might even be scanning everything for storage in an electronic database, and, if you have cases in federal court, you probably already receive court filings in PDF format.

If your attorney has everything in her e-mail, it’s easy for her to locate and print copies as needed. Even if she prefers to have you print the copies for her, she has only to ask — perhaps by simply responding to the e-mail in which you sent her the document.

I know that not every attorney will eagerly sign on to this newfangled notion. Depending on her age, temperament and work habits, your attorney might need some convincing. But it’s worth a try. I expect most attorneys under the age of 50 will agree readily to it. Who doesn’t want less office clutter and the feeling that she’s helping the environment? Not to mention the convenience of having a virtual copy of an entire file, right there in Outlook. Probably a few of those over 50 will got for it, too.

In the event your attorney agrees to give PDF a chance, here are some key aspects of my strategy:

• Always use an informative e-mail subject line — e.g., “[client/matter]: [brief description of document attached],” and, if necessary, include a more detailed description in the body of the e-mail. For orders, I always summarize what’s been ordered, so that it’s not necessary to open the PDF to know what the judge said. Content summaries are especially helpful if your attorney is on the road and accessing her e-mail from a PDA.
• Use the same method for distributing interoffice copies of outgoing mail and filings — including a copy to the sender herself.
• For lengthy documents you’re pretty sure your attorney will want a hard copy of, either note in the e-mail that you’re printing her one, or ask if she wants one. Attorneys hate to send a document to the printer and then discover it’s 500 pages long and the printer has jammed. Prying hot, crisp wads of paper out of the printer isn’t on most clients’ lists of billable legal services.

An added benefit of the PDF/e-mail copy-distribution system is that anyone who might need a copy of a document can get one with a minimum of effort and expense. You needn’t wonder if all 5 attorneys working on a particular case really need that 47-page brief. Just e-mail it to them, and they can print or delete as needed. Likewise, they can file away key items and access them where they need them and when.