Paperless Discovery
By Yoshinori H. T. Himel

On June 19, 2002, Shaun Murphy and Karen Armstrong of Compex Legal Services, Inc., spoke at the monthly meeting of the Sacramento Lawyer Technology and Law Office Management Users Group (SLUG) on the subject of electronic document retrieval. Compex celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, with operations in Sacramento, the rest of California (with a total of 14 California offices), Nevada, and Texas. Murphy is a vice president in Torrance. Armstrong worked as a legal secretary in the Sacramento area before shifting to the field of document retrieval with Compex's Sacramento office.

Murphy started by covering "Paperless Discovery Using Electronic Images." Counter to expectation, Compex does not capture discovery documents directly to electronic images. The first capture, conducted onsite, is to microfilm.

Why Microfilm? Murphy listed microfilm's advantages. Microfilm has a long life, captures details like handwriting well, and is able to be enhanced as needed to bring out such details. Moreover, microfilm can capture long strips of paper like EKG strips. With the proper equipment, one can scan microfilm to disk.

Compex scans to TIFF images. This is the same scanner output format used by other litigation support firms such as D-M Information Systems in Davis. From there, Compex can convert to any media, including paper, CD-ROM, and (if you have a fast Internet connection) e-mail. Advantages of electronic format include easy storage on today's large hard disks, portability on CD media, easy duplication, and flexibility of use in formats used by document management software such as Concordance or Summation. Using such software, you can easily print pages, highlight, attach post-it notes, redact, and otherwise make the documents useful without wasting paper. For simple viewing, Windows 95 and later Windows versions include a Kodak image viewer.

SLUG member Brian Taugher asked whether Compex's TIFF images could be converted to Adobe PDF format. The answer was that Adobe Acrobat 5 and later can convert images from TIFF to PDF.
In response to another question, Murphy said that subpoenaing and capturing documents typically costs $.15 to $.18 per page. By law, he said, Compex is a neutral third party, not the agent of any one adversarial party, and can maintain and authenticate archival electronic copies and put them on its Web server. Compex can authenticate the microfilm version, too.

A member asked about Bates pagination. Murphy responded that page numbers are endorsed in a footer to the electronic images, by software, at no charge. The microfilm version does not have page numbers; its first and last frames have the photo date and other identifying information. The footer guarantees that there will be space for the page number even when the microfilm image has no extra space.

A member asked about producing records to an adversary in a way that gives both parties the same page numbers. No problem, said Murphy. Multiple parties can register to get the images from the Compex website; each party can order a set; or, to avoid the charge for an additional set, one party can reproduce the images for the others. Ask Compex about its service of an on-line depository for cases with multiple plaintiffs and defendants such as asbestos or breast implant litigation.

Murphy and Armstrong conducted a drawing for a $75 gift certificate to Il Fornaio; Lauren Pai was the lucky winner.

SLUG News: At the June meeting, SLUG members voted to go without the monthly postcard in favor of e-mail-only meeting announcements.

SLUG Meetings: SLUG meets at noon on the third Wednesday of the month at the Delta King. For details, subscribe to the Sacramento County Bar Association Listserv or see the County Bar's event calendar at www.sacbar.org. Reserve your place and menu choice with Mike Cable at 381-7868.