Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonist
Heh, you mean like lawyers?
Trust me, I'd take a LexisNexis search over a day in the library any day  |
I would love it if more lawyers worked with digital files. Our company does business with some who won't deal with email.
I would LOVE to stop printing 10,000 pages of Bates-numbered transcripts and exhibits to be handed over to the other side of a case. (I understand that my company would not like to stop printing these things; we make a lot of money selling paper to lawyers who are baffled by PDFs.)
Also, digital files are touchy in court. Any digital file can be edited, and while (probably) all edits can be checked (or at least, a skilled geek can tell you if a file's been edited), even knowing *that* files can be edited is a specialized skill. (A lot of people think PDFs are edit-proof.) And if you've got a bunch of tifs burned to a disc, there's no way to confirm when the last edits to them were done.
I love digital archiving and strongly support better search & index capabilities, but I don't see them replacing paper entirely; I see them as a different kind of tool, with different benefits & drawbacks. Paper doesn't accidentally change if someone else looks at it & clicks the wrong buttons.