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.

Iron Mountain’s Total Offsite Records Solution is comprised of two main pieces:

• Dedicated Offsite Records Center – Law firms can move both active and inactive records to an Iron Mountain records center, freeing up office space for revenue-generating activities and allowing information managers for the firm to focus on more strategic governance activities. Additionally, law firms gain greater storage capacity; document security; and space for preparing and viewing scanned records than they have managing records on-premises.
• Go Digital Smart – Iron Mountain designs a customized digitization strategy based on the law firm’s culture and best practices to ensure attorneys have quick and secure access to information. Plus, through a partnership with DocSolid, a leader in document scanning solutions for the legal market, firms can enter documents scanned by Iron Mountain directly into their existing document management system. This integration ensures records are properly indexed and accessible from anywhere.

“Like other organizations, law firms are looking for ways to control costs and adopt new operational strategies to run their business more efficiently,” said Matt Kivlin, director of product management, Legal Solutions for Iron Mountain. “Our Total Offsite Records Solution helps law firms to lower their records management costs and find additional efficiencies through digitization. Law firms not only gain an operational and performance edge; they also strengthen their ability to manage information. This ‘two-for-one benefit’ supports many firms’ efforts to go digital and advance records staff to information governance and compliance roles.”

For more information on Iron Mountain’s Total Offsite Records Solution, visit www.ironmountain.com/Solutions/Law-Firms/Total-Offsite-Records-Solution-for-Law-Firms.aspx.

Iron Mountain at LegalTech New York 2013

On Jan. 31 at the LegalTech New York 2013 conference, Iron Mountain will participate in a pair of events on how law firms can gain control over information and improve governance, access and productivity.

• Panel Discussion – This session titled “What is all the Hype about Information Governance?” will feature members of Iron Mountain’s law firm symposium steering committee. These leading law firm information governance directors will define information governance; outline key considerations for developing a program; and offer ideas for winning organizational buy-in.
• Emerging Technology Showcase – Software maker Gimmal will join Iron Mountain to lead a discussion on how companies can use Microsoft® SharePoint® to establish a unified, consistent and defensive solution for managing both paper and electronic documents.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a leading provider of information storage and management solutions. The company’s real estate network of 64 million square feet across nearly 1,000 facilities in 32 countries allows it to serve customers around the world with speed and accuracy. And its solutions for records management, data backup and recovery, document management, and secure shredding help organizations to lower storage costs, comply with regulations, recover from disaster, and better use their information for business advantage. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain stores and protects billions of information assets, including business documents, backup tapes, electronic files and medical data. Visit www.ironmountain.com for more information.