Paperwork is essential to the practice of law, but it can become a drain on firm resources over time. In addition to consuming office supplies, printing and manually filing documents requires significant time and effort from staff. Records also require valuable office space, which becomes more costly when offsite storage is required for archives.

Digital file management can alleviate some of these costs, but proprietary storage servers can become quite costly as well. This can be particularly problematic with email. Whenever a file is sent as an attachment by an employee, a copy of the file is saved with the email in Sent Messages, in addition to the original copy stored in the sender’s file system. If the file is sent internally, a third copy is saved in the recipient’s inbox, tripling the space that file occupies on the firm’s server. While the difference may only be a few megabytes for a single file, imagine how often this scenario or similar cases may happen throughout your office in even a single day. Those extra stored copies will add up over time.

Many law firms now look to the cloud for a resolution to these challenges. SaaS (software-as-a-service) providers can help by providing ready-made document storage solutions for firms. With cloud storage, the service provider manages the servers and infrastructure, decreasing the strain on IT resources. A cloud storage solution need not completely replace the firm’s own storage servers to be cost effective. Cloud services provide web-based backup that is completely scalable to the firm’s needs. They can help consolidate storage, as staff can be directed to the cloud to access any files that they need. This decreases the need for repetitive email attachments.

Hundreds of law firms have adopted ShareFile as their file storage and transfer provider. The ShareFile service provides an easy to use, web-based portal where legal professionals can share files with coworkers, clients and counsel. ShareFile offers customizable pricing plans to ensure that each firm has the storage and tools that they need to work effectively, and the flexibility to change the plan as storage needs grow.

Contact ShareFile for more information, or try the service with a 30 day free trial.