- 29 | 09 | 2026
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Paper, paper everywhere and barely time to think: law firm document management
Read moreAbout the company
Latest Insight
Paper, paper everywhere and barely time to think: law firm document management
Read morePaper, paper everywhere and barely time to think: law firm document management
Intro Three practical information management approaches for the legal sector
Legal institutions run on paper. Vast amounts of time are spent reading, checking, filing, and sharing hard copy documents in order to do business, win cases and comply with regulations.
Even if you’ve shifted some operations online, managing the unruly, hybrid physical-digital beast that is a law firm’s document estate is a massive undertaking.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Here are three approaches to information management for legal institutions that could make a tangible difference for your associates, partners – and ultimately, for your clients.
Approach 1 Start with structure
In this industry, knowledge is power, and proof is king. Being able to access vital documents quickly and easily isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s existential. A delay in getting hold of court documents, a damaged deed, or a page missing from a contract could lead to irreversible reputational harm.
The right structure underpins any efficient information management process. While some sectors are shifting towards almost fully digital operations, the reality is that law firms still need to handle paper in large volumes. At OASIS, we make it easy for legal sector clients to search across both physical and digital archives without switching systems. We do this through the way we index and provide metadata (the labels used to identify and catalogue what’s in your files) – using your reference numbers, rather than making you use ours. And we do it by uploading the digital information in a way that works for you – directly into your internal systems, for instance.
It’s also important to prioritise and triage documents into what you might need to digitise to access regularly, what needs to be kept in paper form for regulatory reasons, and what can or should be confidentially destroyed.
Approach 2 Simple sharing – whatever the format
Hands up if you have team-members who work flexibly or remotely – or if your firm has multiple office locations. Keep your raised if, in spite of your distributed workforce, teams are expected to collaborate more than ever.
I’m going to bet that your hand is still in the air. If you need to pass the baton to a colleague in New York, to work on a document overnight, it’s child’s play with digital documents. But what happens when the file you need is in hard copy? This is when OASIS’s ‘scan on demand’ service can be a lifesaver – letting you search your outsourced document store, convert physical files into virtual copies and share them securely – all without eating into valuable fee-earner time.
Approach 3 Watertight controls
Whether your data is stored in a cardboard box or in the most advanced digital system, being able to track and control access is imperative. Which version of the contract is the right one? Who made the last change? Who has accessed and shared it? Has it been removed from where it should be stored?
A robust system lets you control who has access, record what actions have been taken and maintain confidentiality. That applies to the email attachment received today as well as to the legacy of hundreds of years of paper documents still being used in the legal system. Any approach must encompass the old, as well as the new.
At OASIS, we apply as much rigour to the security and tracking of your paper documents as we do to helping you apply user permissions, version controls, and document retention policies to your digital files.
Trusted legal experts Specialist expertise for the legal sector
The way you handle your paper and digital information could be the difference between winning or losing a case, deal, or client.
It takes specialist expertise to design a long-term strategy that caters for all data formats and considers the pitfalls, risks and restrictions that come with working with sensitive information.
Here at OASIS, we work with legal organisations on better information management strategies, from outsourced storage to scanning, shredding and Sharepoint-based tailored records management systems.
Take action Get in touch to find out more
Our legal sector experts can advise on more efficient, collaborative and secure information management across your document estate.
Get in touch
- 17 | 09 | 2026
Planning a document scanning project? Read these top tips first
Read Planning a document scanning project? Read these top tips first now