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Mobile-ize your office & meet your clients where they are

Cost-consciousness is here to stay at your favorite law firms. Even the best of clients feel the squeeze from their corporate and insurance agency clients to contain costs in all aspects of their business.

One result is that many law firms are downsizing their physical space — some lawyers don’t even have an office anymore. And more and more, they are running their professional lives over the phone, using the latest generation of smartphones and the ever-increasing array of business and productivity apps that run on them.

Now you can offer clients your own time-saving app that puts your office on their smartphones. RB Web Mobile Apps are branded with your company name and logo making it easy for clients to find, download and use them. They give clients access to their important information, such as their depo schedule, transcripts, case files, and invoices, on their smartphones.

The change from desktop to laptop to smartphone access is happening quickly in all areas of business, and it’s easy to see why: Mobile apps give people instant access to their information. They don’t have to carry around a laptop, wait for a computer to boot up, type in a long URL or deal with a secure site timing out.

RB Web Mobile Apps are currently available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. A Windows Phone 7 version is coming soon. Each version requires an RB Web subscription to operate, and cost $50/month with an initial $250 set-up fee that includes app registration.

Your reporters, videographers and other resources can also use your RB Web Mobile Apps to check their schedule, acknowledge jobs, and view case files and pay statements.

If you too are making the realization that mobile is where you need to be, RB Web Mobile Apps give you tools on your own smartphone: You can check that all of the next day’s jobs have been assigned, audit job entries and cancellations, look up information about reporters and other resources in your database, even get driving directions to a client’s office — in case they still have a brick-and-mortar address.

For more information, download the product PDF or contact RB Sales.

Ready to order?

Use the RB Web Mobile Apps order form. You will need your RB product code to begin.

To find it, click on Tools > Web > Site Configurations in RB8. Your product code is listed on the General tab.

Posted on May 7, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

Top Tips for 2010

For court reporting & other legal support firm owners

Yong Lee’s top tips for business success this year:

I wanted to give you my top three tips for ensuring your business will survive and thrive in 2010.

Last year was a tough one for many court reporting firms. It was the worst I’ve seen my clients experience in my 25 years of developing software and services for managing and marketing legal support businesses.

While the overall economy is slowly improving, I foresee continued tough times for your industry. The legal industry is experiencing stagnant business growth so cost containment is one area they are focusing on, leading many firms to drop longtime vendors in the hopes of lowering their outside costs.

At the same time, they are also more open than ever to new ways of doing business and using technology to save money and improve their own services. So in spite of the disturbing trend of disappearing loyalty, there is still business for you out there, but only if you do everything you can to cut costs, maximize efficiency, provide relevant services and communicate effectively.

I believe you can be successful in 2010, and to help you hold onto your clients, win new clients and improve your business, I offer you my top tips for 2010 and best wishes for a prosperous year.

Sincerely,
Yong Lee, President & CEO
OMTI, developers of ReporterBase

#1. Is your office getting in the way of your business? Get rid of it.

You could save thousands a year in overhead by eliminating costly office space. Before you dismiss this as too radical, remember: Extreme business conditions require you to re-think everything.

Question the amount and kind of space you need:

• Can you and your staff work from home? You don’t need expensive commercial space if you can all work remotely.
• If your reporters turn in their work online, and you offer direct deposit pay as well as online pay statements, they don’t need to come to the office anymore.
• Eliminate the need for file cabinets by scanning everything into a central system that also automatically maintains electronic copies of all work products, job/client/resource/location info, invoices and statements, etc. Then give clients and reporters online and wireless access to their information in your system automatically.
• Save even more space — and the need for tech services — by using data farms for your electronic storage infrastructure instead of maintaining your own servers.

With a ReporterBase (RB) system, you can do all of the above. Plus you can automatically access job, client and reporter info on the road via your BlackBerry so you can maximize your own effectiveness. No telephone tag, no unnecessary trips back to the office — it even has Google Maps so you won’t get lost driving to a new client’s location.

#2. Who’s afraid of lawyers? Become their partner in cost containment & technology solutions.

Before you get that dreaded “We’re switching to someone cheaper” call, make your firm the most cost-effective, attractive solution to your clients’ problems — and tell them about it.

You can compete on price, as long as you educate your clients on what that means:

• Tell them you don’t charge for word indexes, cover pages and other filler. Other firms attract your clients with lower per-page costs, then pad their invoices with extra pages. While their per-page cost looks better, help your clients compare total costs for services to see that you are the best value.
• Offer online repositories for their pre-trial discovery period, during the trial and beyond at a low monthly cost. Add no-cost-to-them benefits like online and wireless access to their depo calendars and invoices, plus e-commerce for instantly downloadable transcripts, and you are lowering their costs even further by saving them time and not adding to their overhead.
• Provide nationwide services by being a member of a court reporting network so they don’t have to narrow their choices to only the big national firms for large cases. Negotiate competitive rates within your network so your clients see they’ll save money by relying on you for all their depos and other legal service needs.
• Establish your reporters’ superior credentials. Agencies that are undercutting other firms’ prices are not paying top dollar for reporters. It stands to reason that their reporters are less qualified. Your experienced reporters produce top quality transcripts meaning your clients don’t waste time deciphering shoddy work.

You can do all of this with an RB system — even providing the best reporters. Not only does it allow you to easily keep track of your reporters’ credentials, but it also helps you attract and retain the best reporters with valuable perks like:

• Direct deposit pay — eliminating trips to the bank.
• Online pay reports — so they always know their future and past pay amounts with details.
• Online turn-in — saving them a trip to the office.
• Job notification via automatic text messaging — so they instantly know when they have an upcoming job without the interruption of a phone call. Plus they can instantly text you their acknowledgement.
• Online access to job files (like shared dictionaries), their schedule and more — giving quick, convenient answers to their questions 24/7.

Un-level the playing field in your favor without resorting to unethical behavior or getting into a pricing war by using all the tools in the RB arsenal to manage expenses and clients.

#3. It’s never too late to get a jump on the competition.

Since everything I’ve described is in RB already, you don’t have to start from scratch finding and adding the latest technology and offering the best services. So even if you feel like you’ve lost ground in the marketplace, you can come out ahead by incorporating RB into your business now.

And if you are hesitating to make such an investment in a down economy, think again:

• We’ve been developing this system for 25 years, so you’ll have better tools than the big national firms’ proprietary systems.
• You can rent the system instead of buying it, so you can get $10M software for as little as $125/mo.
• If you don’t like it, you can cancel it at any time — you’re not stuck if it doesn’t work for you.
• You can add all the web and mobile features with RB Web for a flat $199/mo. for all of your clients. And if you have only one client who needs an online repository for one case, you can add RB Web to meet their needs. Then when they don’t need it anymore, you can cancel the online services.

Keep your clients and win new clients by offering cutting-edge online services and competitive prices for all of your services with the help of powerful RB tools.

Move your business forward in 2010

While you might have spent 2009 in business survival mode, 2010 should be different.

Be pro-active and talk to your clients now about what you can do to help them control costs and take advantage of the benefits of new technology. Don’t let your clients forget you or wait until they drop you before you contact them about how you can work together to succeed in a difficult business environment.

And as we have for the past 25 years, OMTI is here to help you control your own costs and provide valuable services that lawyers want. We understand your industry and new technology, and actively work with our clients to continue to develop RB to meet the ever-changing needs of court reporting and other legal support firms.

To find out more, visit our website or contact us today.

[Excerpted from OMTI's brochure for the NCRA Firm Owners Executive Conference, February 3-5, 2010, Orlando, Florida.]

Posted on May 5, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

Lots to love in Q4 2009 RB8 & RB Web

The last updates of 2009 have something for everyone on your staff and your clients. Simplified interfaces, integrated services and e-commerce top the list. These updates, which were presented at the online Team RB conference at the end of September, are available now for users of RB8 and RB Web 8.

Simplified interfaces

RB8 has been made easier to navigate and use with less switching between screens, because multiple functions have been combined into single screens making them meta-task centers. Calendar functions and views have been combined, resource functions have been combined, and contact relationship screens have been combined to speed your company’s workflow.

New features

The new turbo-charged Calendar Manager has an additional view option similar to Microsoft Outlook that shows a week’s worth of jobs sorted by job time & color-coded job status. Users roll over a job to see a pop-up of more details, and can quickly send job confirmations, cancel and schedule jobs here.

FedEx and UPS delivery services are integrated into the update. Users can print shipping labels and track deliveries from within RB8 without switching applications or having to enter tracking numbers manually.

Other RB8 time-saving tidbits

Other new features in RB8 include an improved Form Manager that reduces user errors and stores your custom forms at a compressed size to save you storage space and load faster.

Online payments in RB Web

The big change in RB Web 8 is e-commerce. Clients can pay invoices online, including COD invoices, and they can buy transcripts online. Now attending attorneys can easily buy a copy of a transcript, maximizing your copy sales.

Orders are processed via PayPal in the background. Your clients never leave your RB Web.

Full-text search for online repository plug-in

With this optional plug-in, your clients can search through 100s of transcripts in seconds.

Popular file formats, such as PDF, MS Word, and ASCII, can be indexed in an automated process so your clients can search their entire repositories quickly with different search parameters.

Full-text search plug-in is available by subscription only, $50/mo., cancel anytime.

Streaming media for online transcripts plug-in

With this optional plug-in, your clients can view video transcripts online in RB Web. Since they don’t have to wait for downloads, large files become usable.

Maybe most important: People can’t steal your files. Files viewed online are not stored locally, so there is no copy on their hard drive. They can’t give it to someone else.

RB Web’s Media Streaming plug-in is available by subscription only, $50/mo., cancel anytime

Posted on May 4, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

Time for a[nother] discussion on digital signatures

Posted on May 4, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

Top features of RB8’s Q1 2009 release

First quarter 2009 might have been the perfect time for improving your marketing efforts and client communications with RB8’s quarterly update. Here’s a look at the top 2 new capabilities in this update of RB8:

Classify firms, contacts & resources with unlimited tags

As your business grows, it can be helpful to differentiate firms, contacts and even resources into subgroups to target your marketing and services better.

For example, if you want to send holiday gifts to your top 10% of clients, you can search for them with RB8’s Marketing Inquiry function. But what about next year? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could easily call up the previous year’s list to review and use? You can with RB8’s new tag system.

Classify contacts in as many ways as you want: Christmas ’08, decision makers, email group — you create the tags you need, and you can attach as many tags to a firm or contact as desired. You can even tag resources, such as your top 10 reporters, so you can target them for special treatment.

You can sort by tags to create a list, then print labels from the list, send emails to everyone on the list, or export the list to Excel. You can also mass update tagged entries. For example, you can update your entire Christmas ’08 list to Christmas ’09 with a click.

Sail through the confirmation process

This version of RB8 keeps your job confirmations organized. If you like to send confirmations as you set jobs, until now you didn’t have a way to make sure you didn’t overlook any. And if you do a combination of sending confirmations one at a time and sending some in batches, you couldn’t tell if you might be accidentally sending double notices to someone unless they complained.

You don’t have to worry about overlooked or double confirmations any more. The new version of RB8 flags confirmations with the date and time sent. At the end of the day — even if you’ve been sending confirmations as you go — you can call up the day’s settings in batch mode and clearly see which confirmations were sent and which you still need to send, so you can quickly only send the ones needed.

And much more…

This version of RB8 is available now and also includes the new digital signature capability.

FEBRUARY–APRIL 2009 FEATURE ARTICLE

Posted on May 4, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

Do more/earn more with RB8

If you use RB8 and RB Web in your business, congratulations. We think you have the best tools in the business to run an efficient, profitable enterprise.

To help you get the most out of your tools, we’ve asked some of your fellow RB users about how they use RB to attract clients, increase efficiency and be more profitable. Maybe you have seen our ads in the JCR (Journal of Court Reporting) describing their stories. In this article, we compiled some of their tips for using online case repositories, RB-PDF transcripts, and paperless archives.

Online case repositories

According to Jim Colville of Colville & Associates, setting up a repository doesn’t require special skills, any average RB user can do it. He considers himself firmly in that camp and encourages other RB users to do what he did.

When he got a call from a lawyer looking for an in-town records repository, he “immediately and without hesitation” said he could do it and set up an appointment to demonstrate — although he had never done a repository before.

All he needed was a quick review of how to create a repository in RB8 and grant access to clients in RB Web (instructions in the RB8 User Guide). He created the demo and won the job.

Then came the hard work of scanning and verifying files. Jim recommends outsourcing scanning to a copy service. Or if you want to do it in-house instead, get a quality scanner, learn how to use your scanner software, and set up an efficient work space for scanning.

For verifying and correcting scans, such as sorting transposed pages and rotating upside-down pages, he recommends Adobe Acrobat Pro  software. He said it was easier to use than his scanner software for verifying and correcting scans, and has other business uses as well.

Another repository tip of Jim’s is to develop a consistent, easily understood file-naming system early on. For example, he uses documents’ Bates numbering with a 3-letter case name prefix.

To further help clients locate files, he copies information from their document indexes into the file description field of documents he uploads into the case repository. Case repositories are by nature large and complex, and you want your clients to be able to find any document quickly and easily on their own — for both your sakes.

PDF transcripts

To Gloria Perry of Associated Reporters, switching from e-Transcript to RB-PDF transcripts was a win-win-win situation: It saved production time, reduced errors and gave clients a superior product. And because it’s so easy to use, she believes other RB8 users can convert their production “overnight, if they already use e-Tran and RB8.”

RB-PDF Transcript Creator is included free in RB8 and is tied to your RB database, so it eliminates switching between applications and re-keying job info. Shortly after the production staff started using it, someone said, “I don’t want to go back to e-Tran. Please don’t make me.”

The biggest challenge in implementing RB-PDF transcripts was getting clients to switch. Gloria recommends setting your RB-PDF transcripts to look like the e-Transcripts your clients are used to.

She also has her reporters give lawyers a list of PDF advantages, such as the ability to load PDF transcripts into trial presentation software without using 3rd-party software. Her points are included in our promotional flyer to share with your clients, which registered Team RB members can download from the members area of this site.

As an early adopter, Gloria had to deal with a version 1.0 PDF creator, which required developing her own work-arounds to get a product her clients would prefer to e-Tran. At the same time, she also had a lot of input into product updates, and now she is “thrilled to report RB has incorporated my procedures for a PDF condensed transcript into the software! It’s all done automatically now. We can now send the entire bundle through RB: the full size with a word index and exhibits, the condensed (with readable-size font) and the ASCII.”

The latest version of RB-PDF transcripts includes:

• The ability to keep some pages full-sized in a condensed transcript, such as the cover page;
• A no-border option because you use a pre-printed form for transcripts;
• Separate border options for the transcript, condensed version, word list and word index;
• Margin control so you can use a 3-hole punch for placing transcripts in binders;
• Automated digital signatures;
• And more.

Paperless archiving

For Irene Rennillo of Rennillo Court Reporting, Records & Media, RB8’s paperless archiving is central to running their business and providing services to clients. With everything archived in RB8’s central repository , both staff and clients have quick access to needed information.

“When paper comes in, and staff asks what to do with it, I say, ‘Shred it.’ We scan everything now, and it’s much easier,” Irene said. “Paper documents don’t go through the office anymore. Everyone has access to the files they need in the central repository.”

In addition to reducing the time spent in-house dealing with files, the repository is also a major part of their marketing.

In addition to reducing the time spent in-house dealing with files, the repository is also part of their marketing strategy. In client presentations, Irene explains, “As good stewards of our business, we are required to be organized, to keep transcripts organized, to keep exhibits, videos, your calendar organized. It’s one step to go from organized to granting you access. It’s your information anyway.”

Some firms go beyond conventional file access and rely on Rennillo to keep them organized. “We give some firms blanket passwords and have all of their transcripts centrally deposited. A firm might have 20 attorneys and ten secretaries, and they might not all have the best protocols for handling their documents, so firms use us as their back-up archive.”

And when a client needed to give opposing counsel quick access to case files, Rennillo was ready. Everything was already uploaded into the archive as it was readied for trial presentation, so “We only had to give the opposing side their own user IDs and passwords, and they had instant access to all of the case exhibits.”

To attract new clients, Irene has her reporters compile a record of all the attorneys who appear on a case. Then when a transcript is ready, Rennillo uses RB8’s automatic notification to email all of the attorneys — even those who haven’t ordered. “Maybe they didn’t think they needed it at the time, but if later the transcript becomes important to them, the email reminds them.”

Bonus tip

For those of you involved in charity events, your RB8 database can come in handy, as Irene can attest:

While preparing for an event to raise money for the Ohio Women’s Bar Association Scholarship Fund, “We were able to cull out all female litigators in our geographical region to target them on the invitation list,” Irene said. “Our list was a more complete database.”

As a result, the event, co-sponsored by local law schools and Saks Fifth Avenue, was attended by 300 attorneys, accountants, and financial planners.

Irene said, “The database part was easy. That took fifteen minutes.”

Fitting 300 people into their offices — well, sorry, RB can’t help with that.

For more Tips/Best Practices from fellow RB users, read the related News article.

MAY–JULY 2008 FEATURE ARTICLE

Posted on May 4, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

Tips to help you market your business & save money

This is the second in a two-part series aimed at helping RB8 users get the most out of their tools. Based on the ads we ran in the JCR (Journal of Court Reporting) earlier this year, we’ve compiled tips from some of your fellow RB users about how they use RB8 to attract clients, increase efficiency and be more profitable. In this article, we cover marketing, cost savings, improved efficiency and green business practices.

Marketing to lawyers

Krystal Edwards of First-Choice Reporting Services uses RB8 and RB Web to market their business to law firms. She says, “RB is the first thing that sets us apart from other firms. Someone might say, ‘Please send us another copy of the transcript.’ Instead, I tell them I will grant them access to their calendar and transcripts online without them having to pay for anything. They are so excited, they say, ‘I’m going to pass you along to the other secretaries’.”

RB8 and RB Web give First-Choice an edge with potential clients too: “I did a presentation to one firm, and the main partners attended. That’s unusual because partners usually don’t have time to spare. They were amazed by our services, and the fact that they don’t get charged for using our web services.

RB8’s central repository makes it easy for First-Choice to offer free online access. “We archive reporter notes and exhibits anyway because as firm owners we are responsible for them, not the reporter,” Krystal says.

In addition, RB8 provides the ability to link exhibits to RB-PDF transcripts. “We have clients who request hyperlinked exhibits, and it is a selling point,” Krystal said. “We charge per page for hyperlinked exhibits. Or we can just make the exhibits available online for no charge.”

“We make enough on pages and per diem that we don’t have to charge extra for web services,” Krystal says. “Our price is very reasonable for linked exhibits; our clients are willing to pay it. It helps the attorney with discovery. If there are 500 pages with hyperlinked exhibits, it saves the attorney time and money: They don’t have to contact a second vendor to provide this service. And they don’t have to do it in-house. We already have the equipment and set-up to do it.”

To explain these services to their clients, “I have the PowerPoint presentation [from the free RB Web marketing kit], which we tweaked to meet our needs, that I show clients. They say, ‘Wow, this is my court reporting firm doing this.’ Any additional service you can offer is good because it secures your client.”

Being ‘green’ is a selling point

To Mason Farmani of Barkley Court Reporters, being a “green” business is not only good for the environment, it’s a selling point. As the first and only court reporting firm certified green by a government agency in the United States, Barkley can help law firms be green too.

Using RB8 and RB Web, Barkley offer their clients paperless transcripts and online repositories. And they added a twist to being green: They plant a tree for every depo booked. At the end of each quarter, they give each law firm a certificate listing how many trees were planted in their honor.

“At the end of the year, I think we will have planted 20,000–30,000 trees in American forests,” Mason said. “All on behalf of our lawyer clients.

“Corporate America is under incredible pressure to be more environmentally healthy. When the lawyers go to their clients and show them their certificate, that their court reporting firm does this, and it’s because of their depositions that so many trees were planted, it is powerful.

“The logistics of this are immense: How do you keep track of all of that?” asked Mason. “Easy. In RB, we made a service item called ‘green tree.’ With every item [original deposition] that we bill, it automatically pulls in that service item. At the end of each quarter, we print a report on that service item alone.

Cost savings for everyone

In addition to helping you earn more money by offering valuable services, RB8 and RB Web can help you save money too. “It was so incredibly easy for us to offer paperless transcripts that we realized that it was not only good for the world, but it’s also going to cut our costs eventually,” Mason said. “People think that going green is going to cost them more because, for example, recycled paper costs more. With paperless transcripts, we see a savings on paper, maintenance charges on copiers (because they are used less), human resources to make copies, shipping charges, etc.”

Barkley was able to transition their clients to RB PDF transcripts easily: “We put a note in with every package: ‘Coming Soon: PDF transcripts’ describing what it was,” Mason said. “We did that for two months. Then we started putting PDF transcripts in with every transcript that went out, and finally no E-transcript, just PDF, unless they request it.”

First-Choice saves money with RB too. “We were able to reduce our staff with RB,” Krystal said. “We don’t have to have as much staff as other firms to do the volume of work we do.”

First-Choice passes along savings to their clients by not charging for web services. “We recognize the cost savings of not having to hire extra staff to handle phone calls and emails.”

For example, “if someone asks for a rough ASCII, all we have to do is go into RB and send the reporter their notes. They then clean them up and resubmit through RB Web along with their bill. This saves the reporter and the office time. And we are able to get the rough ASCII to the client quicker!

RB8’s automation also helps First-Choice get paid quicker: “We pull up the Jobs in Progress report, and remind reporters about any outstanding jobs. Past dues are cleared up quickly. If a client is closing out a case, and needs to make sure that all of their past dues are paid to date in the matter, they can look online. Plus with RB Web, reporters can see if a job hasn’t been billed out yet and call us to ask about it.”

First-Choice’s reporters save money too: Because they receive automatic email job notifications with attachments and can check their schedules online, Krystal reports, “We were able to eliminate reporters’ fax lines, saving them $40 a month.”

Organization & efficiency

Also looking out for reporters is Teresa Stephanoff of Sousa Court Reporters. “A court reporter’s time is valuable, so every agency should use RB Web [online offices]. Not only is it accommodating to your clients, but your court reporters as well.”

With RB8 and RB Web, Teresa increases reporters’ efficiency with easy access to shared case files, job notification via text messaging, online turn-in, downloadable pay statements, and convenient job assignments.

“I know reporters like it when you’re organized as it helps them stay organized. They love that they can see their calendar in advance, transcripts in related cases, and monitor their outstanding jobs, what their payroll will be, or how much they made in previous months.”

Because one of the many hats she wears covers reporting, Teresa understands what reporters need: “A large part of being a good freelance reporter is creating the most efficient atmosphere to work in. Productivity increases, less mistakes are made; you always know where to find what you’re looking for.

“Being an independent contractor, you are responsible for keeping your ‘business’ running smoothly. When an agency is up-to-date on technology, it is one more helpful tool in keeping our ‘business’ running smoothly and efficiently. Even a simple thing like [RB’s] electronic worksheet is something Sousa is ahead on compared to other agencies some reporters work with. The reporters appreciate Sousa’s effort in staying current and even ahead of the game.”

“Staying current with technology allows the reporters to do their whole production at home without incurring the costs of traveling to our office or incurring shipping costs,” Teresa pointed out. “They can keep their expenses down by having everything at their fingertips as well!”

Teresa also uses RB8 to reduce reporter travel time to jobs in the large geographical area Sousa covers: “With RB8, I can track job locations quicker. I have reporters who live in the Valley, San Diego, the Inland Empire. I try to schedule reporters for jobs where they are at, so they don’t have to drive a lot.”

Other RB8 features Teresa uses to her reporters’ benefit are online file sharing and automatic text messages about jobs. Teresa reports that the reporters love sharing files online. “This helps with job preparation — they can add words to their dictionary before the job, so their transcript is cleaner, which requires less time for final transcript production.”

Her reporters are equally enthusiastic about job text messaging. “I emailed all the reporters and asked for their provider as our software now allowed us to send them messages via their provider at no extra cost. They loved that we are technology savvy and could do this.”

For more RB users’ tips, read the related News article.

AUGUST–OCTOBER 2008 FEATURE ARTICLE

Posted on May 4, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles.

So easy a caveman could do it

Jim Colville owns Colville & Associates, a court reporting firm in Tucson, Arizona. He has been a court reporter for 40 years, and an RB user since the “stone age” of DOS. He set up his first online case repository this year, and this is his story.

When Yong asked Jim to address this year’s Team RB conference regarding his experiences with the records repository, Jim didn’t understand why. He doesn’t consider himself an expert on records repositories or on any part of RB8. He rates himself, at best, an average RB8 user.

While Jim was thinking about what he had to offer, he saw the GEICO ad on TV about “It’s so easy, even a cave man can do it.” Click, the light went on. Jim knew that Yong wanted someone who is not an expert to tell their story so that all of the other average RB users can see that they too can do this.

Online repository case history

In the early part of 2007, Jim was contacted by one of the largest law firms in Tucson about setting up a records repository. This law firm had recently begun representing a large general contractor in a construction defect case. The attorney who contacted Jim had been involved in construction defect cases in California, Nevada and Arizona. However, all of her Arizona construction defect cases had document repositories in Phoenix, and she was tired of having to drive to Phoenix to retrieve documents.

The repository they were using did not allow them to actually view documents online, they could only see a description of what each file contained. When the lawyer wanted to actually view documents, she had to either order them from the repository and hope that they were what she wanted, or drive the 125 miles to Phoenix to view them. She wanted a repository in the Tucson area so that she could avoid the frequent drives to Phoenix.

Jim had heard of RB8’s repository, and being a typical court reporter and pathological optimist (his words), he quickly answered that this was indeed something that he could do, and they made an appointment for a demo.

Immediately after hanging up the phone, Jim called Yong and asked him if he could actually do what he said he could do. Yong assured Jim that he could. He then walked Jim through, step by step, what he needed to do. (You do not have to call Yong for this information. It is included in the Field Guide to Success with RB8, which registered Team RB members can download from the members download page on this site.)

Jim put together his demo. First, he created a demo case file. Then he scanned in some old exhibits and miscellaneous documents, and uploaded the files to the repository. Next he practiced all the steps over and over again until he could do it blind-folded.

The demo went without a hitch. The client was elated. The fact that she could download files right at her desk and print out just the ones she wanted was like a miracle to her. She was sold. But Jim had a haunting feeling that he was missing something. He thought, “Nothing that you can charge for is this easy.”

Problems encountered

Jim worried that if there was going to be a problem, it would be with scanning, the aspect of the process that he was least familiar with. He had scanned in documents for the demo, and it seemed as easy as copying documents, but without the paper. But because the company scanner is also their copier, scanning would have to be done evenings and/or weekends, so as to not interfere with normal production. Luckily, they are located close to a university, and Jim found a graduate student who would work evenings and weekends to handle the scanning.

Nothing happened. They waited and waited, wondering if the case had, for some reason, gone away. Then Jim got a call from the paralegal stating that they were going to deliver some documents that day so that they can get started scanning. Eighteen bankers boxes of records was the first installment: a stack of documents 18 feet high and two feet wide. It was a little daunting.

As soon as they started the scanning, Jim realized that this was the bottleneck he had feared. It wasn’t going to be as easy as it had seemed up to this point. While they have a good, fast scanner, its software and document feeder did not seem capable of handling this kind of assignment. After scanning in a large file folder of documents it took as long as 45 minutes to convert it to a .pdf file. If the document feeder jammed, it was difficult to correct the file. Often, they would have to start the whole file over.

Handling all the different size pieces of paper was a nightmare. Some of the documents were literally scraps of paper that had to be hand fed. Removing staples was no minor task. Plus the office set-up was wrong: the scanner was across the room from the computers. So using the scanner required someone to walk literally miles a night going back and forth from the scanner to the computer. After 44 hours of work, they had completed two boxes of documents.  At this rate the cost to the client would be prohibitive.

Solutions

Outsourcing seemed to be the only hope. Jim contacted a professional copy service provider that were much better equipped to handle this kind of assignment. They were willing to do the scanning for the same per page charge that Jim had quoted the client; which left him the hourly charge that he had quoted for verifying, indexing, uploading, etc. This was a tremendous relief, as Jim was able to shift the scanning to someone with better equipment and more experienced personnel, and be able to control costs.

The next step after scanning was verifying the scans and uploading them to the repository. Jim recommends Adobe Acrobat 8 for scanning and verifying files. It was much easier to use than the proprietary software that came with Jim’s scanner. It made verifying scans and making corrections, such as sorting transposed pages and rotating upside down pages, easy. Jim says it’s a must for projects like this. (In addition, Acrobat 8 will Bates number documents as it scans them if needed.)

Another program Jim recommends is A-PDF Merger. It takes multiple .pdf files and combines them into one. When scanning, sometimes it’s easier to scan in several files separately that should actually be one file. This program makes it a simple process to combine these smaller files into one file. It costs about $25.00 (A-PDF.com).

Lessons learned

The biggest lesson Jim learned is “know your scanner.” It’s the workhorse in creating a records repository. You or someone on your staff needs to know every aspect of it, such as how it can handle files with different size originals, and how it can handle going from the document feeder to manual scanning and back to the document feeder.

Now Jim’s staff knows their scanner better and is doing more scanning in the office and outsourcing less. However, for small offices, Jim recommends outsourcing large volumes of documents, especially in the beginning. In fact, Jim says he would still choose to outsource large numbers of documents because of the personnel and logistical issues involved for a small firm. As he says, “We are a court reporting firm, and we want to make our profit off of court reporting, not scanning.”

Another lesson Jim learned was about client accuracy. Some of the parties furnished indexes with their documents. These had to be verified as there were numerous numbering errors. Jim’s experience has been that you cannot trust anything you get from the client. Verify it all. However, after verifying and correcting, the indexes did simplify the description section of the repository because he could copy and paste the descriptions from the indexes into the repository.

There is a problem in RB8 when you have large files containing numerous unrelated documents because the description area of the repository has a limit of about 250 characters. In these situations, when Jim would run out of space, he would conclude the description with ellipses and post the index in the repository for the attorneys to download and read the full description there.

Once you have everything uploaded, and have notified all of the parties that the repository is ready for them to use, what can you expect? Jim had some complaints about download time. This usually can be traced to attorneys using old computers with minimum memory. When Jim explained this to them, most of them were already aware of it and were amenable to updating in order to take advantage of the repository. Some of the paralegals were actually happy to have Jim’s support in getting them updated.

Keeping file sizes down (around 35 to 40 megabytes max.) will help with download time. Jim recommends A-PDF Split or A-PDF Size Splitter (a-pdf.com) for breaking large files up.

Jim also had a problem with an attorney using a combination of Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 6. When the client viewed a file from the repository it loaded into their temporary internet files. If they tried to view it again later, the computer sensed that it is there and did not download it again, but it didn’t display it either. The client had to delete the file from Internet Explorer. To eliminate this problem, the client should save the file instead of viewing it. Upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 also eliminates the problem.

Jim had one additional issue with download times being so slow that the server would actually time out before the file was downloaded. This was an issue with the way his internet service provider communicated with RB. It was quickly and easily corrected. Contact RB Support if you encounter this problem, as there is an option that can be selected within the program that will fix this problem.

The results

At this point there are 13 parties in the case, and more to come. Only two of these parties were already Jim’s clients, so this has been an excellent introduction to new clients. Everyone involved in the case has used it. Some of them were new to repositories and were impressed with the concept. Others have used them in the past and were impressed with the ease and simplicity with which the RB system works. One client even exclaimed, “Finally we have gotten away from the ‘Mother May I’ approach,” referring to having to order documents from the repository, which involved filling out a request form, sending it in, and then waiting for delivery of the documents.

In the beginning, there were two firms that were reluctant to use Jim’s repository. They were using one in Phoenix for their documents, but they had to use Jim’s repository to access the documents of the other parties. It was only a short time before they recognized the difference and moved their documents to Jim’s repository. Later, the court ordered that Jim’s was the official repository.

Jim believes that the online case repository has been a wonderful way to showcase what his firm can do. He describes himself as not much of a marketing person. His method has always been to try to do a better job and do it faster, and let his work do his marketing. RB8’s records repository allows him to continue to market the way he is most comfortable, by simply showing what he can do.

The next step for Jim is to introduce the parties on the case to RB’s online calendar and .pdf transcripts. Jim is hoping that because the case calendar will allow all parties to keep track of the deposition schedule, it will further enhance his firm’s value to the parties and result in all parties using Jim’s firm for all the depositions in this case. Because these attorneys are likely to be doing more complex litigation cases in his area, they hopefully will contact Jim for repository services for the next case.

If you, like Jim, have gotten an online case repository with parties who are not your clients, we’ve created a kit to help you cross-sell your case calendar and PDF transcripts to those parties. Registered Team RB members can download this free kit from the members download page on this site.

NOVEMBER 2007–JANUARY 2008 FEATURE ARTICLE

Posted on May 4, 2012. Posted in OMTI.com articles. ← Older posts

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