Roy A. Ackerman

You know I’m an old fart. I’ve been practicing (one day I’ll get it right) as a professional for more than 40 years. Which means a lot of my “practice” got started before computers were in every building, let alone on every desk.

Yes, I stored articles in file cabinets. Back then, I numbered each article, with a code letter to denote its primary aspect of interest to me. And, every article had at least one index card, filed by its primary, secondary, and tertiary interest to my research or effort. I was able to retrieve and use the information, almost at will.

Now, I have virtually no articles in file cabinets. Unless you consider my 1 TB hard drive a file cabinet. (Yes, it’s backed up- one is instantaneous, the other is nightly. Oh, and the data is also transferred to the server at least once a day.)

I store the files in directories. Ranging from chemical engineering (a catch all), dialysis, respiratory care, neurosurg (including maladies of the brain), management (with sub directories for entrepreneurship, marketing, leadership, etc.). But, every article is also indexed. Any and all words over the length of 3 letters. So, I can search for concepts and see all the articles that could possibly be germane, when electing to search for one.

My naming system for the articles is simple. It’s the name the author provided it, with the occasional addition of the publication and/or where I met the author. But, I rarely search for articles by their name.

Not so with correspondence or reports that I have written or received. That is a bone of contention among our staff. Some folks name each letter they write to a client as “ClientX DocY”. Others name them “ClientX DateY”. Yes, these items are indexed (another one, on the server, so every person can find relevant information for their own searches). And, every document produced or received by us in relation to client efforts is also included in our accounting system. (Our accounting system tracks time, eMail, documents, reports, and phone calls, each linked to the client and project.) So, a uniform naming system is not critical.

But, many of our clients lack such sophisticated software. (We wish they would adopt these practices. It would make their lives- and ours- much simpler.) As such, they must determine standard nomenclature- or they will never find what they seek.

Moreover, we- and they- need a file retirement system. Not every gem I write or receive deserves to be saved for posterity. Oh, i know, we can always get a larger hard drive. (I’m not sure my laptop can handle much larger disks without major improvements, but you get the idea.) No, instead, any document that we produce is tracked by yet another database.

That database prints out a list of documents that have not been indexed by our accounting system (meaning that they are not client-related) and not been accessed in 30 days or more on the first business day of the month. (It does not track “articles” placed in our library; they are assigned to the library by the two senior partners and/or our research librarian. Others can suggest choices, but it takes the action of one of the three of us to approve same.) If no “affirmation” is placed within a week, the article is erased. Period. (OK. Not period. It actually exists in our backup system for another three weeks, since we have a four week rotation on backups for all systems. So, if someone were on vacation for a while and wanted to access it, s/he could- at a price.)

We are electronic- completely. Paper documents are scanned in immediately upon receipt and placed in the proper project file. (The scanner names them by Date and Number- and does “word recognition”. Please note that this word recognition is less than perfect- MUCH less.) But, many of our clients maintain both electronic and paper file systems. Where the paper files are the current project of the day or month. Many of our attorney clients print out all the documents in the file before trial and lug them to and from court. (They fear the non-physicality of the computer storage). But, once the case is over, they either turn over the documents to the client or they shred them. After all, everything is already available in electronic form- and backed up.

We also have a policy of not submitting any documents to clients that are not in PDF format. We do this for several reasons. One, file formatting will not be changed. Two, alterations can be easily monitored. (When we work with legal firms and issues, the PDF files are secure- password protected to preclude alteration, and occasionally for document retrieval and printing.) And, we can be certain that the receiver can read any file we send without worrying about the software they may have.

Now that we’ve explained our process… When are you going to update yours? To protect yourself, to find what you need when you need it, and to insure it stays that way with backups?\

Share this: