If you want to build a paperless law office, then avoid the practice of criminal law. While other parts of the legal system are slowly, but surely, moving into an electronic and paperless future, all important documents in a criminal practice need to be produced in hardcopy form.
And so I do have to maintain and secure client files.
Still I’m finding ways to minimize the paper flow. My discoveries may make sense to you in your real estate business, so I’ll share them here from time to time.
Today: The scanner.
I need something that is fast, produces good quality scans (but need not reproduce the Mona Lisa in all its glory), and is inexpensive. Right now my firm is me. But later I expect to add a support person and additional attorneys.
So I want something that can be networked so that colleagues can share the scanner.
I think I’ve found a solution: The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. I got the S1500M – the “M” is for Mac. It’s roughly $400 from Amazon, although I bought mine slightly cheaper. For the $400, Fujitsu throws in the latest version of Acrobat Professional, which itself runs more than $250 retail.
I haven’t fully exploited Acrobat Professional, but I’m sure it’s got some features I could incorporate into my workflow.
But I have worked with the ScanSnap for the past two months, and it’s been nearly flawless. It’s fast – Fujitsu claims 20 pages a minute – and handles a pile of documents of all sizes, automatically adjusting the scanner to accommodate different sizes.
Very rarely the multi-document feeder jams on a document that’s folded or wrinkled. But fixing the jam is painless. Most of the time the scanner powers through like a champ. Just put the documents into the feeder, and press the scan button. The scanner handles the rest.
This is a color scanner, but I have not used it to scan in photos so couldn’t say whether the scan quality is good enough for anything but the most basic color scanning.
Best of all, the scanner is only 12 inches by 6 inches, so fits nicely on any desk. It’s by no means a portable scanner, but it is light and small enough that you can move it from place to place without much hassle.
I had the ScanSnap up and running within 5 minutes out of the box. The Fujitsu-supplied software is not refined. It runs in the background and detects the scanner in operation. The software also offers the ability to create profiles to automate the handling of documents.
The ScanSnap S1500 is a USB device, not a networked device. One solution: connect the device to a spare computer/server and share the Scanned Documents folder so that everyone in the office can reach his scans.
Another problem: the ScanSnap software has not been updated for the latest MacOS version, “Snow Leopard”. It crashes on the “Scan to Folder” feature, although there are workarounds for this bug. Fujitsu promises to have a fix out by the end of 2009, but that’s an absurdly long time to wait for a $400 product to integrate seamlessly with a major operating system like MacOS.
The ScanSnap 1500M doubles as an excellent copier by scanning in documents, and then printing. So if you need a scanner to handle workplace documents, that has a small physical footprint, is reasonably priced, and just works, then I’d recommend this product.
If you need something that’s somewhat less robust (and less expensive), try an earlier model: the ScanSnap S500 is the previous version of the S1500, and, while somewhat slower, is apparently also a very good product.
Finally: I get nothing, got nothing, and will never take anything for recommending a product or service on this blog. You’ll just get my thoughts about products or services that I have found valuable in my work, and think you might find useful as well.
Rob says:
Righ you are!
Rob
October 4, 2009 — 8:16 pm
Bill Wilson says:
I just bought the ScanSnap S1500 last week and totally agree. This is a really nice scanner that works perfectly!
October 5, 2009 — 4:10 am
Matt says:
We decided, since the Scansnap was very inexpensive, to place one on each employees desk and haven’t regretted it one bit. One of the best investments in our business was the S500 on each desk. Scan and email to clients in seconds. Get the paper off the desk and filed more quickly for less clutter. The list goes on. We’ve had them for a couple years and they’re still working strong and have paid for themselves many times over.
October 5, 2009 — 6:29 am
Doug Francis says:
The best investment that I made in 2008 was buying an all-in-one scanner for $135 at Staples. And with digital signatures from DocuSign, my clients respond faster and more securely. It is easy too. As an every-day real estate agent, that little investment was a lot of bang for the buck!
Just last week there was an issue with FHA underwriters accepting digital signatures… wanting “wet signatures”. We will work around that and in time, like your local county courthouse, I’m sure they will come around.
October 5, 2009 — 7:45 am
Joe Dallorso says:
Love my scansnap. I’m now totally paperless. I scan everything to a PDF & email contracts. I receive faxes to an Efax account as a PDF. I just open a file on my desk top & dump everything into it including email exchanges with agents & clients. At the end of the transaction I save a copy to an independent hard drive & burn another copy to a CD.
October 5, 2009 — 1:18 pm
Nick Johnson says:
Thanks for that review! I’ve been going through these ‘all in one’ machines left and right it seems. I finally broke down and bought just a separate printer that runs on only black and a fax machine that runs on only black. Its very annoying having to make sure there blue ink so that the blank prints will work 🙁
I’ve been really looking for a separate scanner and trying to utilize and optimize office live so that all the team members can have access to the scanned files. I’m going to give this one a shot that you recommended and I hope it goes well.
October 5, 2009 — 8:46 pm
Kevin Tomlinson says:
Ok. I have the Scan Snap. My issue is with the system of scanning the file, ie Table of Contents or index or filing system.
Help?
October 7, 2009 — 7:50 pm