The Challenge
We were asked to partner with a number of government agencies (‘Agencies’) who were asked to appear before a Royal Commission. The Agencies were required to submit information in compliance to a Notice to Produce. We received approximately 150 boxes from various organisations.
The Solution
We offered our clients a three step solution:
1. Digitisation
Digitisation transforms information into computer-readable format. Our recommendation for this process was document scanning to an image for more efficient storage, security and organisation.
Benefits of digitisation:
- Prevents degradation and aging of documents
- Searching for documents is faster
- Frees up physical space
- Enhances security
- Particularly useful for over-size documents
- Documents are more accessible on a number of devices
- Cuts overheads
- Increases productivity by improving communication, collaboration and automation
Although the process was slowed down by de-stapling, unclipping and removing post-it notes, we turned the 150 boxes around quickly.
2. Delimiting
The next stage involved delimiting 250,000 pages of scanned material, adding page numbering and optical
character recognition (OCR).
We bundled the scanned documents by subject matter electronically. The main benefits are minimising the time spent searching for a file and creating a user-friendly database of files.
After delimiting, we used OCR technology to electronically convert the documents from an image into encoded,
searchable text and added page numbering.
3. Objective Coding
The final stage was to objectively code the documents following the format stipulated in the document management protocol provided by the Royal Commission.
The objective coding stage involved our expert Legal Process Outsourcing team reviewing each document and preparing a computerised index of basic objective data for each document, e.g. document date, author, recipient, document type, etc.
Objective coding corrects any inaccurate metadata attached to the document, e.g. a document written and signed by a partner might show the administrative assistant as the author in the metadata, because it was originally typed on the assistant’s computer.
The Outcome
The information required for The Notice to Produce was submitted on time and complied with the protocol.
