Recently, the managing partner in our firm asked that we begin looking for ways to cut client costs. I noticed that prior to my arrival , members of the support staff often outsourced projects I normally would have handled on my own, so I decided to adopt a policy of using a vendor only when absolutely necessary.
We use Summation and I have never used Summation prior to this job, so I began by learning as much as I could about the software. This involved talking to the vendors, reading manuals and “playing” in the system. In two and a half months, I have learned how to create .tiff files, write my own .DII load files and mastered some advanced coding and editing techniques. I’ve found this to not only be cost effective, but also more efficient. Vendors may employ technicians who understand software and programming, but not necessarily the litigation process.
Earlier this week, I learned that we needed to export a large amount of electronic data (over 60 GB) to a client. This required us to run a digital sweep of our servers for all electronic data related to this particular client. In the past, the firm outsourced these types of tasks. I refused to see my firm incur such expenses, so I volunteered to do the job myself. The process turned out to be very simple and painless and I lost no billable time while working on it.
My next challenge? Tackling the large copy jobs we are forced to outsource. I’m still searching for the perfect solution to this problem, but have several good leads.
Is your firm/office forking out big money to a middle-man to perform jobs you could do in-house? Are there ways you could help cut costs, produce a better product and make your firm/office more efficient? I would love to hear your ideas.
Paralegal Pundit 