Save your electronic research!

Here's a quick electronic research tip that I implemented in my own work a while back. If you obtain material from Westlaw, Lexis, or some other electronic research service, set your delivery options to download and save the material. Organize the downloads in some coherent way in your computer files, or if you have case management software that can organize and store your electronic research, use it. You'll save your clients and your firm money when you avoid pulling the same cases and statutes over and over again. I prefer PDFs over any word-processor format, since it's harder to change a PDF by mistake and it prints out looking the same each time.

Don't try to keep only paper copies of your research. That'll make it harder for others who works on the file to find the fruits of your research. I worked on a case once that had three different primary researchers over the course of the project. I was the last one to come to the project. The other two attorneys printed copies of each case they pulled from Westlaw and filed them in "Research" folders.

That wasn't inherently bad. It's good to hang on to copies of cases that have your notes and observations penned in the margins. But the files were difficult to wade through, and they contained many duplicates (and triplicates) of some sources. The firm passed its Westlaw costs on to clients on a transaction basis, so the clients had paid separately for retrieval of each copy of those documents, even if they'd come from a database that was part of the firm's subscription plan. Saving copies is even more critical if you decide to step outside the scope of your subscription.

If you've saved copies of your research, you can check to see if you've got a copy already before you casually ring up another charge for your client. An associate who writes a memorandum can make a note that all of the supporting materials are available in a particular online folder that anyone in the firm who finds the memo can access. Depending on what version of Acrobat you have, different people working on the file can make electronic comments on the PDF source material that everyone else can see. In the end, the client and the firm save time and money.