Managing your law firm can be a complicated task. For example, you will need to retain your case files for many years after resolving the case in order to comply with professional and legal requirements. If you are struggling with meeting this need, you may want to utilize these three organizational and storage strategies to help you avoid problems.
1. Create a General Reference List
It is a reality that you will need to retrieve some of your case files. When this need arises, it can be extremely difficult for individuals to locate the specific file. To help with this task, you should create an orderly filing system and a general reference document. The reference document should contain the names and case numbers for the files that are being stored. By reviewing this document, individuals should be able to quickly determine where the needed file is located so that they can retrieve it. Furthermore, you may want to include an area where individuals can mark whether they have checked out a particular file. This will save your employees time from scouring for a file only to realize a coworker was already working on it. A digital system may be the most convenient way of making and updating this reference list, but traditional pen and paperwork may also be sufficient.
2. Use Case File Jackets
The various pieces of paper and other documents that will need to be included in a file can be extremely difficult to reassemble if they fall out or otherwise becoming disorganized. To help avoid this potential problem, you should invest in high-quality case jackets that can hold these items. In addition to investing in these jackets, you should also invest in labels that can be placed on the front of the file jacket. Ideally, this label should include the name of the case, the date it was closed, along with a brief statement on what the case involved. This information will make it easy for individuals to quickly ascertain whether it is the file that they actually need. You can find these specialty case file jackets at any store that caters to legal needs, such as American Legal Forms.
3. Be Mindful of Where You Store the Case Files
The location where the files are stored is another important factor to consider. If you store these documents where the humidity can fluctuate, they may suffer severe degradation that could render them unusable. For this reason, you should always store these documents in climate-controlled settings so that you can be sure humidity will not damage them. Also, you may want to invest in fireproof storage cases so that you can avoid the catastrophe of losing all of these files to a fire.
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