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‘Anything that we can do to save the trees’: Why paperless is the future
This boutique has transitioned to a paperless practice, which, as well as being a new, innovative way of practising law, is also cost-efficient and environmentally friendly. Here’s what other firms can learn.
Lauren Croft
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Lauren Solomonson is a lawyer at Victorian boutique Safewill, which is a finalist for the Innovator of the Year Firm category at the upcoming Women in Law Awards.
Speaking recently on the Boutique Lawyer Show, Ms Solomonson revealed how Safewill transitioned to paperless whilst working in a paper-heavy sector of law — and how other firms can keep their clients happy whilst making the move.
Whilst lawyers who first start working in a law firm office’s “first reaction” is often to print something or always provide clients with hard copies of documents, Ms Solomonson said that if a document can be sent electronically, it not only saves on postage fees but also cuts down time delays, in addition to being better for the environment.
“[During] the pandemic, Australia Post really struggled there for a while, getting documents to and fro, and we’re also reducing that all-important paper waste. [In] this day and age with technology, most things can be done online,” she said.
“If you send an electronic document via email, a client can very easily print that out if they do want to have a hard copy, and of course, if someone does request a hard copy, you can always post it to them, but once people get into the jive of using electronic documents, we find that most clients are very receptive to it.”
Despite this transition being an important one, there are numerous challenges firms and clients can face when switching to electronic documents — but Ms Solomonson said that personally, she’s used cloud-based and online technologies since law school.
“A lot of my classes during university were online based, so we were submitting our assignments and everything online, so we had a cloud portal where we submitted everything. I naturally have just become used to using electronic documents, but it can certainly be a jump for a lot of clients if they haven’t done that before. We do get a lot of people who say, ‘No, I really want to be able to physically go into an office; I want to be able to physically sign the paperwork,’ and so you’ve got to try and break down to them how there’re benefits to using electronic documents,” she explained.
“For example, in Victoria, we can sign probate and letters of administration applications using Zoom and DocuSign. You don’t need to have that meeting in person. You just set up a really convenient time for everyone to jump on Zoom, and you can do it that way. It gets uploaded digitally to the court portal as well. Explaining how the times have changed and processes have changed to clients does help break down that new way of doing things.”
In Ms Solomonson’s practice area of wills and estates, there is a wide range of clients who benefit from a more modern, paperless way of conducting matters.
“There are some clients or people that we’ve spoken to who just have that really traditional mindset around signing the physical paperwork. If they’re close to our office and they want to come in and do that, that’s, of course, always acceptable, and we’re happy to accommodate that, but I think after the pandemic, people appreciate the convenience of being able to do things online. If they can sign their probate application from the comfort of their home, they come around to that idea fairly quickly, and we always set it up at convenient times,” she said.
“We’ve found that after a while, people do get used to the correspondence via email, and it’s particularly helped with clients who are based in remote areas. Sometimes, we assist clients in regional parts of NSW, Victoria, [and]Queensland. They may not have a law firm in their area that they could just drive five minutes down the road to. Having that optionality of electronic signing, electronic witnessing, that’s really convenient for them.”
And overall, in terms of the firm’s experience shifting to paperless, Ms Solomonson said it’s been “fantastic”.
“Internally for us, if there [are] junior lawyers drafting things, that can be done and reviewed electronically by their supervising solicitor,” she added.
“Our head office is in New South Wales. I’m in Victoria, so a lot of everything that I do is electronic so that it can be seen by the team in Sydney whilst I’m here in Victoria. Overall, it’s been fantastic. Anything that we can do to save the trees is always good.”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Lauren Solomonson, click below:
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
