No efficiency for me - I'd like my documents produced in paper

Great article in the ABA Law Practice Management Webzine by Sharon Nelson and John Simek entitled: “May I Have My Electronic Discovery in Paper Please?” - Lawyers Inch Their Way Toward a Paperless Practice. This passage sets the stage for the provocative discussion that ensues:

The first time we heard an attorney ask us to convert all his electronic discovery materials into paper, we gasped. This resulted in several boxes of paper that could handily have been burned to a single CD-ROM. Now, after many similar requests, we have grown jaded, and dutifully perform this senseless task after a patient, and usually ineffective, explanation of why their request doesn’t make any sense. As we often sigh to one another, it is a long and winding road to change the deep-rooted practice of paper generation.

Why have lawyers been so slow to adapt to the paperless world? Is the reason no better than the one Tevya gives in “Fiddler on the Roof” about the customs of Anatevka? “We do it because it’s a tradition!”

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