The Gazette 1985

APRIL 1985

GAZETTE

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. 69

Word-Processing in a Medium Sized Solicitor's Office

by Colman Curran, Solicitor

O 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