Digitising data is helping a law firm to stay on top of its casework.
A law firm has spoken about how using off-site document storage and other technology has helped it to stay on top of its data management requirements.
Sackers and Partners has around 100 staff including 65 lawyers, all of whom are constantly generating important paperwork and emails.
Head of IT at the firm Danny O’Connor told Channel Biz that two million documents were stored in July 2012, up from one million in January 2010 and only a few tens of thousands in 2006.
All of this paperwork has to be retained for legal reasons and many pieces need to be regularly accessed, so the company outsourced its data management requirements and now has everything kept securely away from the main premises.
"Everything we have goes into our document management system; emails form a huge chunk of that. We have around 1.5 million emails in the system with around half a million Word documents," explained Mr O’Connor.
Blocks of data are used so that the most frequently required information can be kept on a faster network, while other pieces of information that may only be needed in unusual circumstances are stored on slower discs.
Mr O’Connor said his firm has strict measures in place with regard to data protection, so everything has to be stored where it cannot be accessed by outsiders. This is something that will be made much easier by its outside management of data.
It comes after Computer Weekly’s Antony Adshead and Manek Dubash recently argued that cloud storage’s strength lies in providing small businesses with flexible archive document storage.
"Most backups are not accessed again, but the option to access recent copies is desirable if, for example, users accidentally delete data," they pointed out.
Mr O’Connor also said that the ‘bring your own device’ trend is also having an impact at Sackers and Partners, as it reduces the paperwork necessary for client meetings.