The Gazette 1985

GAZETTE

APRIL 1985

Word-Processing in a

Medium Sized Solicitor's

Office

Colman Curran, Solicitor

UR firm is made up of 13 solicitors, 2 legal

executives, 5 working apprentices, 2 accounts staff,

a receptionist, a court clerk and 13 secretaries. Initially we

purchased one stand-alone word-processor in September

1979 as a replacement for an IBM Magnetic Card Type-

writer which five years previously had seemed the height

of sophistication. The British and American legal

experience was that lawyers were putting word-

processors to good use in terms of the service which they

were offering to their clients and in terms of overall

productivity. One or two word-processors had been

demonstrated in our office and it seemed to be

advantageous in commercial and conveyancing areas to

be able to edit and manipulate a text with such ease. Our

first machine was used primarily in the drafting and

redrafting of long leases, mortgages, commercial

agreements, discretionary trust wills and other lengthy

documents.

We decided against specialised word-processor

operators and instead one or two of our most senior

secretaries were trained in its use and their use of the

machine was supervised by a Solicitor who was given

responsibility for word-processing at the time.

When we purchased our second machine (due to

pressure on the first) we took the approach that every

member of the secretarial staff should learn gradually to

use the machine. This gave every fee earner the chance to

experiment and see how his or her work could be

improved by word-processing. A rota system was set up

whereby every operator was allocated a certain time of the

day on the word-processor in accordance with the fee

earner's requirements.

Looking back our initial use of the machine was not as

effective as it could have been. We had not learned the

capabilities of the machine to merge texts or the

disciplines of indexing and categorising material on the

machine with the result that most fee earners in the office

did not know what precedent material was available in the

memory of the word-processor and could not easily find

out. There were also problems with regard to who could

make use of the machine — obviously partners with

urgent work got priority and this meant that some

Solicitors never used the machines at all because of the

routine nature of their work and the location of the word-

processors in the building — a somewhat ironic situation

as we now know that word-processing is especially suited

to routine repetitive work.

As familiarity through more intensive use increased our

knowledge we set up various forms of indices by reference

to the different areas of law (probate, leases, commercial,

litigation, etc.) and we grouped all the precedent material,

on disc, in each area. Each floppy disc had an index of its

documents with a brief description of the document and

the date on which it was last updated. The idea was that

individual fee earners who were expert in each area could

periodically examine and update material in that area for

the benefit of all. In practice this was rarely done, but the

advantage was that, for the first time, all the precedent

material was visible (on the index printed out) and

accessible to all Solicitors in the office.

With fee earners making more and more use of the

word-processors it was decided to purchase further

machines as it was seen that we were only beginning to tap

their potential. Our debt collection department, which

formerly operated with one fee earner and one secretary

now operates with two secretaries using word-processors,

one fee earner and one legal executive and there has been a

quantum leap in output and productivity directly as a

result of word-processing. All correspondence and

pleadings are passed through the word-processor.

In the purchase and lease of word-processors from our

supplier we tried various configurations in the office. At

one stage we opted for six screens connected to a central

processing unit and a hard disc storing all the

information. In theory this put the entire office in

communication with the information stored in the hard

disc but the response time (the time it took the machine to

do various functions) was too slow and our supplier was

in a position to accommodate us by changing the system.

At this point we opted for "cluster systems" which

involve one host screen and two slave screens, sharing a

printer. The information is stored on a hard disc in the

host screen and can be shared simultaneously by all three

operators. This is particularly useful if an office is tending

towards departmentalisation as all the information in a

common area will be available to those in the department.

In the event of a breakdown only a cluster rather than the

entire office is put out of action.

It has become apparent to us that to obtain the

maximum benefit of word-processors experienced

operators are required but it also requires the interest,

time commitment and active input from the fee earner

who is directing the work. Without this input the word-

processor is more useful than a typewriter but not much.

We now have twelve word-processors in the office and

typewriters are seldom used. 90% of correspondence

leaving the office is done on a word-processor and printed

out on a sheet-feeder which feeds our headed notepaper

into the printer yielding a considerable time saving

compared with correspondence typed on a typewriter. We

have experimented with continuous stationery but as yet

without success as the quality is not to the standard we

require.

We have, of course, had problems and continue to have

them, but overall we feel that we are offering our clients a

more efficient service (and many of them already using

modern technology expect this) and we believe that the

quality of the typed product and the turn around time has

been improved with the use of word-processing.