So-Called Paperless Office Uses Hundreds Of Cheap Binders Monthly

To all the computer and technology geeks out there: if you tell me one more time that we’re in the age of the “paperless office,” I swear that I’m going to scream. You obviously haven’t spent any time in a real office. I work for a company that employs six lawyers, as many research assistants, a receptionist and myself. Fourteen people in that office; between us we have twenty computers and you would think that would be the end of it. Electronic nirvana, especially if one believed everything in the technology magazines about the death of the printed page.

Let me set you straight on that matter. The largest room in our complex, by far, is not the reception area, the board room, or the senior partner’s office. The largest room is probably larger in square footage than all those other rooms combined. It is dedicated to paper! Filing cabinets stuffed to the gills with printouts. Bookshelves lined with thousands of cheap binders filled with the records and minutiae of past cases. Sure, anything that’s been printed is backed up on CDs and DVDs as well (the ones on CD go back to the nineties), but that’s an archival requirement that allows us to easily store backups of all our records offsite. If one of the researchers has to look up details on a case that’s coming up for appeal, they don’t hit the computer to do it, they pull the binder with all the printed material from the case and use that.

To generate this forest-killing avalanche of white bond, we employ two photocopiers, one scanner, two laser printers, one color laser printer, six ink jet printers, one portable inkjet and one large format inkjet capable of printing poster sized copy for use in the courtroom. Our monthly budget for supplies used to be horrendous until I switched to an online office supplier and cut it down substantially. We go through several hundred binders in a month, anywhere from two to five cases of printer paper, a slew of inkjet and laser cartridges and dozens of pens. There’s also blank DVDs, and the hard to find supplies for that wide format inkjet. Oh, and the fax machines (three of them) too. It’s all delivered, so no more rush trips to the mall with the return stagger back from the parking lot while trying to balance fifty pounds of paper.

When I switched to our online supplier, I saved enough to have a coffee machine installed- all the coffee supplies are also delivered along with our paper...
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