As hybrid office planning continues to evolve in the majority of law firms across the country, firms can no longer rely on the typical scan-to-email-pdf approach. This cobbled together method of daily mail delivery is inefficient and it creates cybersecurity liability for the firm. This is where the Airmail2 Digital Mailroom comes in.

DocSolid’s Airmail2 Digital Mailroom completely transforms a law firm’s paper centric mail into a secure, efficient digital operation. Airmail2 is setting the standard as a best practice for law firm digital mailrooms because of how well it facilitates hybrid work. Legal mail items contain client information that is confidential and time sensitive. Therefore, the methods for processing the daily mail digitally must incorporate the same standards applied for all client data at the firm.

The Airmail2 Digital Mailroom was engineered from the ground up to solve the security and compliance requirements of law firms with direct digital delivery of daily mail fully integrated into the firm’s document management system (DMS). Sensitive information is protected and governed by DMS best practices consistent with the firm’s information governance policy.

To upgrade a law firm mailroom with a best practice digital mailroom solution such as Airmail2, the firm’s stakeholders must gain an appreciation for the distinct differences and advantages of implementing a new digital mailroom operation. Contact us to get the Airmail2 Advantages Checklist PDF. This information helps stakeholders and leaders at the firm understand the business case as it relates to their law firm. From that point, DocSolid will help you define the scope of a project including business requirements, objectives and budgeting.

In order to achieve a digital transformation of your mailroom into a best practice digital mailroom, it is important to understand a few of the fundamental differences and advantages:

Security and Information Governance

Law firms are driven by security and information governance concerns. Legal mail items are time sensitive and they contain confidential information. The rudimentary scan-to-email-PDF approach most law firms have in place are faulty because the scanned mail items are unnamed and uncontrolled. Using this method proliferates security risks that put the firm and their client’s sensitive information at risk. Airmail2 solves this problem because a best practice digital mailroom operation delivers daily mail directly into the law firm’s DMS where confidential client information is properly secured and governed.

“Cybersecurity was a large selling point. Having the ability to securely notify the legal teams and having that password protected was huge. Our managing partner is very involved in our cybersecurity practice area and he really liked that.”

-Database Analyst, Regional Firm US
Airmail2 + NetDocuments

Cost Reduction and Efficiency
Recognize the amount of labor, quantified in people and dollars terms, that is consumed by continuing to support makeshift scan-to-email-PDF methods. A best-practice digital mailroom is labor efficient because it enables batch work that requires fewer mailroom clerical staff, reducing the cost to operate it. It also stops the wasteful mail handling time currently in the hands of attorneys and legal assistants who should not be distracted by the redundant delivery of paper mail.

Overall Business Process Improvement
Mailrooms are scanning daily mail because some of that mail belongs in the DMS. But how do you know that ever even happened? A best-practice digital mailroom closes the loop on business process because it is a comprehensive end-to-end solution for getting mail into the DMS. It accomplishes this seamlessly with built-in quality controls, automatic email notifications and operator alerts. And one more thing… The entire mail delivery cycle time is faster too.

Attorney / Employee Experience

A best practice digital mailroom achieves an attorney-focused experience that does not require employees to change the ways they work. For mail recipients, it is a reliable daily routine, no matter where they choose to physically work on any given day. Everyone appreciates the consistent experience you get with Airmail2 automated notifications and the option of communicating back to the mailroom with the Airmail2 Hub. For a hybrid workforce, it is ideal for fee earners and staff to have a few things that they can rely on operating the same way every day. The importance of this is greater than ever as hybrid work must be scrutinized for security from every angle by the CISO – Chief Information Security Officer, Records Managers and Information Governance leaders. The daily mail is a fundamental physical office function that is mission critical for law firms. That is why secure digital delivery with Airmail2 is essential.

Productivity

Labor is a one of the biggest considerations when deciding to budget for a new Digital Mailroom system. Using reasonable calculations, DocSolid has a spreadsheet tool that demonstrates how existing labor costs exceed the purchase price of the software. Use our Productivity Tool to reveal your existing mailroom costs and what you’ll find is that budgeting for a digital mailroom is a very smart choice.

With scan-to-email-PDF, or the old convention of physical mail distribution, operational labor costs add up quickly. This tends to be overlooked, but it becomes easy to see how these costs add up when the operational labor is taken into consideration for everyone that plays a part in supporting the mailroom operation. Contributing cost factors include:

• Mailroom labor
• Mail recipients labor
• Quality control work
• Physical paper mail delivery & disposition
• Help desk, administration, IT involvement, supervision

The redundancy caused by a scan-to-email approach leads to additional labor costs that are avoided with a digital mailroom solution like Airmail2. Scanned mail has to be scanned and emailed to recipients, but in most instances, the mail is also physically delivered as well. This becomes double the amount of work for the mailroom staff, but it also adds work for recipients as they have to reconcile both the digital and physical documents while also creating the work of disposing of the physical mail once they are done with it.

Conclusion

The overhead costs of maintaining an inefficient mailroom operation alone makes a best practice digital mailroom operation a fiscally responsible decision for a law firm. The typical scan-to-email-PDF method is a waste of money each day it is kept in place, while the cybersecurity risks are akin to playing Russian Roulette with confidential client information. It’s impossible to align daily mail delivery with the hybrid work variability of each employee in every office location… Unless you adopt a best practice solution.

Next Steps

• Contact us to request a copy of the complete Airmail2 Advantages Checklist.
• Book a demonstration to learn how you can design a best practice Digital Mailroom for your firm with Airmail2.