File Management: Dull but Necessary

by Terri Olson

Have you ever winced when co-counsel asked to sit down with one of your files and review it? Worse, have you ever put off that same request because you couldn't find the file? Most law firms would have no problem agreeing with the theoretical statement that organized and easily locatable files are a good thing. But most firms also have very poorly organized and managed files.

Why is that? For one thing, it's hard to find time to do housekeeping chores of that sort in a busy law office, and it may not even seem necessary if your firm is small and your case files few. I think, however, that a larger reason is it's hard to quantify the value of good organization within a law firm's files. If your firm has always been chaotic and messy, you probably assume that spending an hour or so a week looking for lost documents is just part of doing business. Similarly, if you tell a paralegal to cross-check an item in the medical records and it takes her two days, you may put it down to "you can't get good help anymore," and not to the fact that it took her a day and a half to find the records.

The temptation in a law firm is also to assume that file organization is your secretary's problem. Well, after visiting hundreds of law firms, I have news for you: your secretary assumes that if you wanted it organized differently, you would tell her. So improvements in how your case files are set up must come from the top down.

Let's say that you have looked around your office and concluded, yes, things could be better organized. Where do you start? Several key components to a good filing system would include:

1. A master index or log of all files in the office. The easiest and best way to have this is to use good case management and/or accounting software in your firm, which will assign a number to each new file and track its status. However, even a firm that doesn't use computers at all can keep 3x5 cards with active file and closed file information on them.

2. A consistent naming or numbering system for all files in the office. There are many different ways of naming or numbering your files, none of which is necessarily a right way or a wrong way. Larger firms often prefer using a numerical system, which has been shown to be harder to misfile than one with letters. But many smaller firms feel that's unnecessarily cumbersome and even unfriendly. Remember that you want to aim for a file label that gives you clues about what's inside, so if you must use client names as file designators, try to add something -- like the year the file was opened, or the type of file -- to improve the informational "punch" conveyed by the label.

3. Within the file itself, information must be (a) organized and (b) logged. As far as organizing the material in the file goes, there are several adequate alternate methods, which include:

a. The two-hole punch. Lawyers are as a group in love with the two-hole punch system of attaching documents to file folders, although I admit that personally I can't understand the fascination. The advantage, theoretically, is that all documents are secured and in chronological order. They are also hard to see, impossible to copy, and difficult to reorganize when necessary. Some other alternate systems that may work as well include

b. Accordion file folders or some other "master file folder", within which is placed multiple small manila files labeled as to contents. Typical content files would include correspondence, administrative work, court documents, police reports, medical records, and so on. It's handy to separate correspondence into "correspondence generated by us," and "correspondence received."

c. Case notebooks. Three-hole punch all material and keep a case "notebook," with material organized chronologically behind tabs separating different topic areas. Note to litigators: special pre-punched protective slip covers are available for documents that you don't want harmed.

Logging each item in a file, although an extra administrative burden, is imperative in order that you will be able to have a running list of all file contents that you can use in case you mislay an item in the file. Without a file log, there will come a day when you look at a file and ask yourself, "have I misplaced that draft of the motion or am I just confusing this with the Jones file, where we filed that motion last week?" Logging the file contents will also dramatically lessen the time spent by you and your staff in frantic searches for important documents. The best logging systems record each piece of paper placed in the file, its title, the date it was placed there, and its current location (if not presently in the file), and assign each document a number. But even something as simple as sequentially numbering each item you put in a case file will help quite a bit, since a missing number is a clue that a document has gone astray.

Please remember that the best system in the world is worthless if you can't make it work in your office. Different firms have different styles and different levels of competence in the staff. If your office is organizationally challenged, you may need to go with a simpler set of procedures, like using only two or three main categories for file contents and keeping a lined sheet of paper as a file contents log. A simpler system followed consistently by everyone is going to be far more valuable to you than a more sophisticated system that staff can't, or won't, keep up with. If you have questions about how these systems can be applied to your own law practice, don't hesitate to call the Law Practice Management Program at 800-334-6865 ext. 773. We'd be glad to talk over the situation and make recommendations.

This article was originally published in the Georgia Bar Journal, April 1996, Vol. 1, No. 5, p. 60