Although this is the age of electronic file-keeping, the practice of law still requires a bewildering amount of paper. The most daunting aspect of managing hard copy files is tracking their movement so they are available when needed.

At Fulbright & Jaworski, our estimated number of files, stored both onsite and offsite, is 2 million. An 85-year-old interna-tional firm, Fulbright has 975 attorneys and 1,300 support staff in 14 offices across the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East. We have 50 practice groups, ranging from admiralty law to international trade to trusts and estates.

In 2000, we selected Accutrac Software Inc.'s namesake product as our records management software, and installed the program first in our Houston office, and then in New York, Dallas and Austin, where it was used for both onsite and offsite records.

In late 2001, recognizing that files were not being properly checked-in and out within the Accutrac software, and too much time was being diverted to searching for files, our intellectual property and technology (IPT) practice group in Dallas offered to be a beta site for 3M's radio frequency identification (RFID) file tracking system.

With RFID, a tiny microchip and antenna are embedded inside a tag affixed to each file folder, which allows its location to be easily tracked through the entire workflow. RFID technology significantly enhances a barcode system, because it uses radio waves so an RFID tag can be read without requiring line-of-sight and handling of each individual file. It also simplifies check-in/check-out, making compliance easier.

Over a six-day period in December 2001, five support staff tagged approximately 5,000 Accutrac files and an automated process was set up to send record information from Accutrac to 3M's RFID system nightly for all IPT practice group files in Accutrac. From that point on, additional files were added. When a new project began for a client — i.e., anything that required separate billing — a "matter number" was created and entered into the Accutrac system. As new physical folders were needed for that project, a new electronic record for each folder was created in Accutrac, which assigned a unique barcode number to it. If the user so indicated, it also forwarded that information to 3M's RFID file tracking system. The user, who might be an attorney, paralegal or office support person, then associated an RFID file tag with the barcode number using the 3M software, and the tag was affixed to the physical folder. That folder was then scanned on a tracking pad monitor to record who has possession of it.

By means of tracking pads located throughout the office, the RFID system tracked the folder as it moved from person to person, or location to location, displaying its current whereabouts on a computer screen to anyone in need of it.

In addition, a portable RFID tracker performed a weekly inventory sweep at each physical file storage location to update the system with the current location of any file that was inadvertently not checked out with a tracking pad. This updating process is much faster and easier than when using a barcode scanner.

Prior to the beta project, we had estimated that we were achieving 65 percent accuracy for file tracking information. After the addition of RFID technology, accuracy for the IPT group in Dallas increased almost immediately to approximately 95 percent.

In early 2005, given the high level of success achieved at the beta site over a span of three years, the IPT group asked our information technology department to add 3M's RFID system for all of its sensitive prosecution files, which are among the most frequently exchanged. That would involve six additional domestic offices: Houston, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Minneapolis and Austin. Although the out-of-pocket costs for the 3M system alone were estimated at $277,000, those costs were anticipated to be recovered within a year by a reduction in wasted hours spent searching for files and an overall increase in efficiency.

But before extending RFID to the other offices, our IT department took the opportunity to re-examine the project in order to address a few issues we were experiencing with our filing systems:

• Because we had several independent databases for each office currently using Accutrac, obtaining a synchronized data flow from source systems was often problematic.
  
  
• The transfer of physical files between our branch offices often resulted in disjointed and/or duplicate records, exacerbated because each office designed its own configuration and security.
  
  
• We needed a reasonable level of conformity among offices, yet allowing some flexibility for each office's procedural preferences.
  

To address these issues, we established a single consolidated database for Accutrac and 3M, replacing individual databases in each office.

This solved the file transfer issues, and also simplified maintenance procedures, training and support, and reduced software licensing costs.

We established security groups — with appropriate permissions — within Accutrac for administrators, file services personnel and general users.

Rather than having data flow only one way from Accutrac to 3M's system, the RFID file tracking information was sent to Accutrac and merged with the checkout history within Accutrac, integrating the two systems — so 3M software was only needed at workstations with a tracking pad physically attached.

Six Offices

In June 2005, we began expanding the program to our six other offices with IPT practices. We coordinated with each branch location's IT staff and key file services and IPT personnel. The cutover to one consolidated set of databases was scheduled for the end of September.
Even with several obstacles tossed in the way, including Hurricane Rita and an unrelated building power shutdown, the records management and RFID tracking systems were offline for only five business days. The consolidated, integrated systems were up and running on October 3, 2005.

Post-cutover, we had a few issues:

• With the databases containing more than 1 million records, response time required for the tracking pads to recognize the RFID tags increased more than expected.
  
  This problem was resolved by adding one 3M RFID traffic managing workstation in each office, so communication from the tracking pads to the database was routed locally rather than across the wide area network.
  
  
• Because 3M's software was not designed to support such a large operation, and because only a portion of files were tagged, we restricted the records sent from Accutrac to 3M's system to specific offices and departments.
  
  This immediately reduced the number of 3M records to about 50,000. (3M is working on modifications to improve performance for larger organizations.)

We have added a custom field in Accutrac so users can control which records are integrated with the RFID system. By excluding files that will not be tagged, we prevent unnecessary inflation of the 3M database.

Installation was accomplished in nine months, and included training key personnel in each office, and coordinating the database cutover. Although still a work-in-progress, we now have five years of experience with RFID file tracking in Dallas, and a year of nationwide experience, from which to draw some conclusions.

With the significant expenses behind us, the cost for installation within the IPT group has been $267,000.

As much as $748,000 is projected to be recovered in the first year of operation, because of lawyer and support staff time saved as a result of timely file retrieval and an overall increase in efficiency.

Our next steps will include adding more practices and branch offices, and we are now evaluating whether our non-legal departments, such as the library and IT departments, could benefit from this technology.

Lisa Simpkins is systems analyst and RFID project manager at Fulbright & Jaworski, based in Houston, Texas.