5 Keys to Digitizing the File Room
5 Keys to Digitizing the File Room
Hybrid work has fundamentally reshaped the legal industry. Attorneys move fluidly between home and office, client demands are increasingly real-time, and collaboration can no longer be tethered to a single location. And yet, many law firms remain burdened by one of the most tangible holdovers of the pre-digital era: the physical file room. In a market where agility, cost-efficiency, and risk mitigation are top priorities, digitizing the file room isn’t just operationally beneficial—it’s a strategic necessity.
Digitization may seem straightforward, but the difference between a smooth project and a stalled one often comes down to planning and execution. Based on years of experience and the evolving needs of today’s law firms, here are the five essential keys to a successful file room digitization initiative:
- Inventory: Scope Before You Scan
No digitization project can begin effectively without first understanding the size and shape of the challenge. Taking inventory isn’t just about counting boxes; it’s about understanding what kind of documents you’re dealing with, how they’re stored, and how difficult they will be to handle. Materials in binders, bound volumes, or mixed formats require significantly more time and care during prep—making labor costs balloon if not properly scoped.
A comprehensive inventory helps firms estimate staffing requirements, plan physical logistics, and develop a timeline that aligns with other key milestones—such as office moves or renovations. It also enables early identification of high-effort documents that may be deprioritized or handled separately. And since labor is often the most expensive part of a backfile scanning project (not the technology), accurately scoping your inventory is the best way to stay on budget.
Importantly, inventorying gives firms control over the digitization process. It shifts the conversation from “How fast can we scan this room?” to “What is most important to scan, and why?” That mindset is the hallmark of a strategic approach.
- Prioritization: Start Smart, Not Just Fast
Once you know what you have, the next question is: what matters most? Not all records are equally valuable or time-sensitive. Prioritizing which files to digitize first allows firms to focus their resources where they will have the greatest impact. Active matters, for example, should be at the front of the line. Scanning them immediately enhances accessibility for attorneys and eliminates the need to retrieve or transport paper documents between locations.
Similarly, recently closed matters should be digitized before they are shelved. This is a key opportunity—those files are entering the system for storage anyway, and digitizing them upfront means they’ll never take up space in the physical file room. Conversely, legacy files or documents that are already scheduled for offsite storage or destruction may be deprioritized or omitted entirely.
Prioritization also reduces organizational friction. It allows firms to move forward incrementally, testing workflows and building internal capacity without biting off more than they can chew. A phased approach, rooted in strategic prioritization, gives firms a manageable path forward and sets the stage for sustained success.
- Integration: Leverage the Systems You Already Have
The good news is that most law firms already have a powerful tool in place that can accelerate a digitization project: their records management system (RMS). When properly maintained, the RMS is a detailed catalog of what’s in the file room—file names, folder structures, practice areas, retention status, and more. Rather than recreating this data manually during the scanning process, smart digitization strategies integrate with the RMS to automate metadata entry and minimize human error.
By incorporating barcoding and digital workflows, firms can pre-populate profiling fields directly from their existing systems. This automation doesn’t just improveaccuracy—it speeds the entire operation. And perhaps most importantly, it enables the use of temporary or third-party labor. Staff without institutional knowledge of the records can effectively profile scanned files by simply scanning barcodes and following preset workflows, all backed by data from the RMS.
This is a force multiplier. It transforms what could be a tedious, error-prone, and resource-heavy process into a repeatable, efficient, and cost-effective one. Integrating your digitization efforts with your RMS also strengthens compliance and record-keeping, creating a single source of truth for both physical and digital records.
- Labor Strategy: Treat It Like a Scan Factory
Digitizing the file room is not a one-person job. It’s a multi-step, team-based workflow—more akin to a factory floor than a traditional office project. It includes prepping files (removing staples, organizing pages), profiling them (adding metadata), scanning the documents, and performing quality control (ensuring image and data accuracy). Each of these steps has different skill and labor demands, and balancing them requires intentional staffing and process design.
Unfortunately, most law firms don’t have the internal bandwidth to dedicate full-time employees to backfile projects. That’s why outsourcing—whether to facilities management (FM) teams, temp staff, or professional scanning vendors—is often the only practical option. These third parties bring experience, flexibility, and the ability to scale quickly. For particularly sensitive files, like HR or personnel records, bringing in disinterested third-party workers can even reduce privacy risks.
An effective labor strategy includes cross-training, so workers can shift between tasks based on project bottlenecks or volume surges. For example, if quality control is slowing down while scanning is ahead of schedule, staff can be temporarily reassigned. This kind of dynamic, load-balanced staffing keeps projects moving and minimizes downtime—critical for projects with hard deadlines like office relocations.
- Disposition Policy: Know What Happens After the Scan
What happens to the paper once it’s scanned? This is one of the most overlooked—and most important—questions in any digitization project. Without a clear disposition policy, scanned files can pile up in boxes, taking up just as much space and posing just as much risk as they did before. Worse, they can become a source of confusion or noncompliance if duplicate paper records remain in circulation.
Disposition planning should start at the very beginning of the project. Firms need to determine what materials can be destroyed, which must be retained physically, and how decisions will be documented. The goal is to minimize the amount of paper retained, and to do so in a defensible, policy-driven manner. Most digitized records can be shredded—especially given that 70% of file room paper is typically a duplicate of documents already in the document management system.
Shredding not only frees up space and reduces costs, it strengthens information governance. It simplifies legal hold processes, reduces liability, and ensures that the firm knows exactly what records exist, in what format, and where. Having a disposition policy in place also helps the digitization team work more efficiently—eliminating the bottleneck of “scan and wait” paper piles and enabling clean handoffs from digitization to destruction.
Final Thoughts: Build the Scanning Muscle Now
Digitizing the file room doesn’t have to wait for a major office move or redesign. In fact, starting small now can better prepare your team for larger projects in the future. Firms can begin by digitizing closed matters, onboarding files from lateral hires, or tackling department-specific archives. These early efforts help build internal expertise, develop repeatable processes, and foster cultural buy-in from attorneys and staff.
The shift to hybrid work has accelerated the urgency of digital transformation—but it has also created an opportunity. Firms are receiving less incoming paper, stakeholders are more comfortable working digitally, and the market has matured with purpose-built technologies to support these transitions. With careful planning and execution, digitizing the file room becomes not just manageable—but transformative.
You may not be able to take the file room with you—but you can take its knowledge and functionality anywhere.
Airmail2 Cloud Digital Records Room Resources
Airmail2 was originally introduced in 2020 as a software solution installed on premises. It was a timely pivot for DocSolid, anticipating the sea change of remote work commonly described as the hybrid workplace. In general terms, hybrid work refers to employees working 2 or 3 days per week in the office and working from home the other days.
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