Why MidwesteMail...Never Change It To Paper Mail 
HEY!
Attorneys!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!
Please envision a town crier, walking through the streets, waving a little lantern and calling out to all attorneys within earshot. “Don’t print your emails for production!” “Don’t print your emails for production!” Better to understand the why not before you are in a situation where you have thousands of emails that were printed to paper for review.
Emails are electronic by definition, and since they are consistently formatted, they can be indexed in seconds, using many of the case management products that are available. The Date; To; From: Re; Body are all indexed AUTOMATICALLY. When you take the same media and print it to paper, you eliminate your ability to search the information, and any indexing must now be done by manual review and data entry. If you want to work one of the above mentioned products, you have now added the scanning in of the paper emails – a cost completely unnecessary, if you keep an e-mail… E-mail. Ching Ching Ching. You are also left with little pictures of attachment icons – rather then the actual document that was transmitted by the email.
If you need to produce emails or you need to receive them – most cases involve a document request that covers them. Midwest can consult with you on the most cost effective manner – and work within whatever budget concerns you communicate.
Save your paralegal from an unnecessary torturous email indexing project. Save your client money. Save a tree…
Johnson Controls Extends Contract 
Midwest Paralegal Services, Inc. has worked as a vendor of JCI’s uninterrupted since September of 1989. This year, Johnson Controls has continued that association with a two year extension of its contract. Midwest provides paralegals on an as-needed basis and allows JCI’s corporate attorneys the substantive paralegal assistance it needs - when it needs it. Midwest has handled Corporate, IP, Product Liability and Litigation Support services over the past year. As cases or special projects are identified, Midwest has assisted on a long term and short term basis. Midwest also supplements the outside counsel staff that JCI utilizes when the firms need a local presence for document productions and special assignments. “I’m very proud of the service record Midwest has established with its corporate clients. JCI has been an innovative part of that process, and we welcome the extension of our contract” said owner, Shawn Olley.
ELECTRONIC APPLICATIONS 
Digital Imaging: This process converts paper (or film) documents into digital documents. Using scanners, the paper is read and a digital “picture” is created. This picture of the document can be saved in various file formats – TIFF, PDF, JPG, BITMAP, PNG, and GIF. TIFF and PDF are the most common.
Text and graphics on a digital image cannot be edited in the same way that you would in the original program that it was created. In the same light, text in scanned digital images is not searchable. The way around this is to add OCR (Optical Character Recognition) during the scanning process. This process reads the text from the paper, and creates a partner text (.txt) file along with the image. The text file is searchable.
Storage of Digital Images: Once documents are converted to a digital image, they can then be stored in much more efficient ways than paper or film. The two recommended ways to store images are CD/DVD (discs) and storage servers.
Discs do not have the same degradation problems that magnetic media (floppy discs/tape) have. This provides security for long term storage without the need for much maintenance. A CD will hold approximately 17,500 sheets of paper, and a DVD approximately 102,375 sheets of paper. All storage discs should be created in a CLOSED format, and should never be written on RW (re-writable) format discs. A CLOSED format means that the disc cannot be written to again, thus the only way to destroy the data is to destroy the disc.
Storage servers have the advantage of extremely high (even unlimited) capacity. Digital images on a storage server are more accessible than discs. They can be shared through a network server around the world. Storage servers require more maintenance than discs, and initial cost can be prohibitive (depending on the size).
Advantages
- All types of images can be recorded such as word processed documents, drawings, graphs, photographs, signatures, etc.
- Both paper and electronic sources can be integrated on the same system.
- Information can be shared to remote locations quickly.
- Many people can use the same information at the same time.
- Images can be enlarged, reduced, rotated, cut & pasted and routed to others.
Approval Procedures: If you recognize the need for a Digital Imaging system to be implemented, please contact Records Administration to obtain approval. Records Administration can assist in the analysis of cost-effective systems, research and legal concerns that one may have, assist with compliance to the corporate policy and determine retention periods for any information not identified in the Retention Schedule.
The Midwest Paralegal staff currently consists of 42 paralegals and IT specialists. A few years ago Midwest employed one part time IT person. Five IT specialists in varying areas of expertise now assist staff and clients a like. The balance begins with having the correct practice types.
The employees of Midwest are provided full benefit packages and salaries in keeping with the current market. The paralegals are NOT independent contractors, they work only for Midwest and its clients. Assignments are handed out based on the demands of the client and the strengths of the paralegal candidate. Calls come in on a daily basis and attorneys explain what type of tasks they need covered and the paralegal that matches that knowledge base will be assigned. Once the project is done, the paralegal notifies the project managers, and returns back for the next assignment. Midwest has client assignments that cover days – weeks – months – years in length. Notice is not required for project ends, although it is appreciated. Paralegals are on the payroll regardless of billable work availability, more balance is needed on staff head count.
Since Midwest has a constant flow of repeat customers, it has larger projects that absorb the influx of manpower as projects start and stop. Midwest also has a group of remote workers that pick up when the staff needs internally expand and contract. “The scheduling process has really worked itself out over the years” said Shawn Olley. “Since we are flexible to the extreme, we have really found a niche market that supports the Midwest business plan”, she added.
Midwest’s rate, on average, continues to be half the rate law firm paralegals are currently billing.
Privilege - Avoid The Log Jam 
Are you thinking ahead when processing your discovery responses? Be sure to include fields/columns which will allow you to print spreadsheets for privilege logs as soon as the conclusion of the document reviews are over – and your responses are produced. Receipt of logs along with the productions can easily identify documents that otherwise raise a question. What is missing? Is the gap an oversight or a conscious exclusion? Images in this day can be endorsed mechanically (thousands of pages in a matter of seconds – with no error) to identify the privilege and be “stamped” with any type of protective order verbiage that the sides put in place. Bates numbering with labels or stamps, although an option, can be streamlined with the use of Production Sets managed by products such as Concordance or Summation. If you are still of the mind to use labels – check with www.xibittag.com for a great FREE download to track and print.
As a corporate client, if your law firm is charging you for an unnerving number of hours to build a privilege log – offer the suggestion that they turn to a mechanical process. It minimizes the paralegal hours, and provides a better work product.
Evansville Police Department Scan's Files 
In order to streamline record storage and eliminate overhead and retrieval costs, the Evansville Police Department has begun the conversion of its historical files to pdf’s. Once scanned, Midwest’s personnel created and exported a thumbnail retrieval index. The index allows the department to use Adobe Acrobat (a software they already owned) to drill down to the records they need. All CD’s can be managed in a fraction of the space, and they no longer have to dig through boxes, or worry about permanent records meeting with some unforeseen disaster. “I really liked the final product” said Chief Scott McElroy.
Impressive Blog - Check It Out 
The following is an excerpt from Bev Butula’s blog:
by Bev Butula on February 26, 2008 11:48 CST
I was giving a presentation the other day and wanted to get to my Favorites. Instead of using my mouse, I used the “Control-I” shortcut. A member of the audience asked what I did, and I explained the shortcut. No one in the audience was aware of it. I then asked who used the “Control-F” shortcut to find a word instead of scrolling through the pages of a website. I was happy to see that more than half the audience answered affirmatively.
Beverly Butula is a librarian with Davis & Kuelthau, S.C.’s Milwaukee office. To read more go to http://www.wislawjournal.com/type.cfm/Bev%20Butula
LEAN: A Fresh Review At Stagnant Processes
Bringing Common Sense Improvements
A few years ago I was approached by a client. He met me in great secrecy to let me know that he was planning on eliminating an entire department. He felt his staff was too entrenched in the old way of doing things, and that the entire system needed to be overhauled. He explained the timeframe and his plan to move all the work to Midwest. A daunting task at the very least, my concern was not that we couldn’t handle the work, but maybe there wasn’t as much waste as he had thought. Perhaps, I pointed out, it was a matter of PR on the part of the workers. Sometimes when you’re in the trenches, your concern of handling the smoldering fire sitting on your desk doesn’t leave you much time to toot your own horn.
The evaluation began. We were able to take the work in, make drastic improvements to streamline the process and meet the goals the client had placed in front of us. It was a fresh review of an old process resulting in a leaner and cheaper way of handling a thankless task. The corporate client’s hunch was right.
Six Sigma - Lean - Seven “deadly wastes” can often times be identified in the management of discovery specifically and litigation in general. Overproduction; Transportation; Waiting; Inventory; Motion; Over Processing and Defects. Manufacturers get the idea… if you are not working at maximum potential, what can be improved to meet that goal? Legal departments are a bit slower to pick up the challenge. Corporations with the mind set of “what have you done for me lately” rarely lean on last years successes. They are out looking to change it up a bit… making the process better. The constant tweaking to minimize waste and increase productivity would be a lesson well learned by attorneys. Billable rates continue to rise and paralegal rates right along with them. The firms that are working smarter rather then harder - are the ones pulling out of the gate… the question is, are you “lean” enough to be one of those out in front?
Midwest also placed a corporate paralegal at a full-time, long term assignment with Johnson Controls, Inc Power Solutions Division. Nikki Werra will assist as the primary paralegal on all corporate task assignments.
Dana Huck, Kris Opheim and Lisa Sprengel attended the multiple day training in Chicago, IL for the 5.0 version of LAW. Dana and Lisa were certified in the imaging and ediscovery processing and Kris completed the imaging section of the program.
Johnson Controls, Inc. extended its contract with Midwest for another two years. Midwest has provided uninterrupted paralegal service to JCI since 1989.
Midwest applied for and received CLE credits for formal Concordance training.
Roland Johnson completed Virtualized Data Center Seminar
