In almost every litigation practice there are complex computer file processing projects that require technical skills and tools that are outside the expertise of most paralegals. While larger firms might have IT departments that can help, a typical practice does not have those kinds of resources. Attorneys really have no idea how a project can be completed, they just demand that it be done. Their view of technology involves some degree of magic.
Securing assistance in completing these projects (many of which can be relatively small, but still require days to complete) presents a variety of problems. These projects often have both technical and legal challenges that make it difficult to find a vendor who can efficiently understand and complete the tasks. A typical copy company does not have any in-house programming capabilities and, generally, only a layman’s understanding of the legal requirements impacting a project. Often it seems like it takes longer to explain a project than it should to do the project.
i-Legal prides itself on being the solution these types of technical-legal challenges. Our unique value proposition is that i-Legal was founded and is run by a lawyer and a programmer who can rapidly understand the requirements of a project, ensure that legal requirements are considered and provide the custom tools needed to get the work done expeditiously.
After 20 years in the image based litigation support business (i-Legal was always a scanning and software company, not a copy shop who scanned), i-Legal has handled an infinite variety of “custom” solution projects and, over that time, built an impressive array of tools. This library of software allows us to approach your project as a “semi-custom” effort that requires some tweaking of existing utilities rather than some huge software development project. Given our background, we also have a very good idea about the deliverable, so our conversations focus on the unique requirements of each task rather than having to explain the basics of litigation.
This combination of experience and expertise really allows us to be the Litigation Informatics experts (Informatics is the science of information). An example of the unusual projects that we handle involved a paralegal who was tasked with trying to convert 2200 files of many different types into PDF while leaving them in their original folder with their original filename (this is how the lawyer wanted to review them). While the paralegal could have done this by hand (eventually), we were able to use our tools to copy all the files to a single folder, review the files for those that could not be converted or required special handling, process them to PDF and then recreate the entire file structure with only PDFs. The project took only a couple of hours, but saved the paralegal days of tedious effort.
Another recent project involved a government contract for a PDF updating utility. This program allowed users to easily and rapidly replace and insert pages into the main PDF from a smaller document. While they had consulted with other programmers, i-Legal received the project not only because it had the proper PDF tools and the technical expertise to manipulate the PDFs but also because of our background in understanding document management which allowed our proposal to be fully integrated in terms of the software plus how the system could work in their office.
i-Legal’s approach allows us to easily handle smaller jobs that can otherwise be hard to outsource. Typically, if you have a million emails, there are lots of companies who want to help you sort them out, but if you only have 1000 emails it is much more difficult to find an interested vendor. Our job minimum is $150 – one hour of time. Typically, because the efforts are case related, you can pass our bill through (no overhead).
Distance is no longer an issue, either. High speed internet allows us to handle projects anywhere. Even with our local clients, much of the work involves transferring files and finished products remotely. Often, we can complete a project in about the same amount of time it would take us to drive to a client’s office.
Most importantly, we are always happy to discuss your projects and how we can help at no charge. All work is fully guaranteed and payment is not required until our deliverables have been reviewed and accepted. We also offer flexible terms. We know that you are passing our bill through to your client so it is not a problem if it takes 45 days for payment.
If you are facing a day or more of tedious manual processing of computer files, we really hope that you will give us a call. It is safe to assume that your clients would prefer you to be using your paralegal skills to help advance their case rather than being bogged down with clerical tasks. Don’t worry, i-Legal can help.