Automation Software Addresses Legal Documentation Challenges
By Catherine Brill, Technical Writer
Solutions Engineering Center
Konica Minolta
In today’s fast-paced and demanding legal environment, a massive amount of information needs to be processed every day. Whether it’s complying with new document archiving requirements, following corporate-wide security standards, redacting sensitive information from important legal documents, or converting scanned image files to popular Microsoft Office formats -- the challenges facing legal documentation processing continue to grow as the volume of electronic data significantly increases.
The need to preserve data for longer periods of time has escalated due to new regulations and legislation. Along with converting scanned documents to digital archive formats, law professionals also need electronic documents with full text search capability for quick keyword searching. Additionally, some law firms are now requiring scanned documents to be sent directly to email for security purposes.
Redaction of confidential material is another main requirement for legal documents. When performed manually, it can involve hiring temporary staff to search through paper documents and block out any confidential material with a marker pen or tape. And, typically, law firms prefer a highlighted copy of redacted documents, which adds more time to the process. For legal professionals who go through volumes of documents at a time, this error-prone process is slow and inefficient. Likewise, applying manual Bates stamps to documents using a handheld device, preprinted label, or an external appliance with software is another labor-intensive and costly process for the legal market.
These rising challenges have coincided with budgetary constraints throughout the legal services market. While still needing to streamline workflows and optimize operational workloads, law firms throughout the country are under pressure to do more with less.
This is where the power of a workflow automation software solution comes in. Streamlining operations through automation eliminates the possibility of errors and improves the effectiveness of an organization’s workflow, producing an overall cost savings. By using software, what used to take three people to do in four days can be accomplished in under an hour -- with greater accuracy. Also, information becomes both easier and faster to retrieve and put in a document management system.
Konica Minolta’s newly released Dispatcher Phoenix Legal software application is a prime example of an electronic document workflow processing solution that improves the efficiency of law firms’ operations while decreasing costs and tightening security. With Dispatcher Phoenix Legal, scanned image files are automatically collected from an MFP (and other sources) for quick conversion to Microsoft Office documents and PDF, including PDF Searchable and PDF/A. Sensitive information can be intelligently redacted and/or highlighted. Dispatcher Phoenix Legal also includes a full-featured Advanced Bates Stamping process, which places an unlimited number of Bates stamps anywhere on the page with text annotations. To address security requirements that eliminate all methods of scanning from MFPs except for email, Dispatcher Phoenix Legal offers a unique “email listener” and Email Parser process that automatically captures emails sent from an MFP into the workflow, with their attachments extracted for further processing.
To learn more about how Dispatcher Phoenix can automate your document workflows, please visit Konica Minolta’s Solutions Engineering Center (SEC) website at www.sec.kmbs.us or contact your local Konica Minolta sales representative.
By Guest Blogger: Konica Minolta Business Solutions U. S.A., Inc.
