Iron Mountain Launches Solution to Help Law Firms Reduce Costs of Records Storage and Improve Access to Information

With law firms under pressure to control costs and improve client service, many are looking at how they store, manage and access their paper records to realize these savings and service gains. In response, Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) today announced the Total Offsite Records Solution for law firms, combining offsite records storage and document scanning. With the solution, firms can regain office space and become more efficient users and managers of their records by moving them to an Iron Mountain facility for centralized storage, management and scanning. As a result, law firms can make smarter use of their real estate and enable attorneys to access information from desktops and mobile devices, improving their productivity and client responsiveness.

"Law firms all agree that 'going digital' will give them faster access to files and lower the cost of records storage and management," said Brian McCauley, director of Information Governance and Matter Management at McDermott Will & Emery LLP. "There's little consensus on the best way to go about doing it, however, and it's hard for information governance professionals to ensure the firm is following a single set of rules for this process when the scanning isn't centralized. Iron Mountain's solution gives law firms the ability to standardize their digitization process by moving paper records offsite for secure storage and easier scanning. Firms should embrace strategies like this to go digital cost effectively, freeing up premium office space for adding attorneys and gaining better security and governance over their paper records."

As reported in the July 15, 2012, edition of the Wall Street Journal, a number of law firms have begun to pursue strategies for optimizing their use of office space (one of their biggest fixed costs), prompting many to rethink the common practice of maintaining onsite file rooms and records personnel. To reduce these costs and reclaim onsite storage rooms for revenue-generating activities, many law firms are digitizing their paper - swapping hard copy for electronic records and making it easier for their attorneys to find and access information in the process. It's a costly and time-consuming project that can fail to deliver the desired savings and productivity gains unless firms have policies for records retention and overall governance.

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