Coding and scanning your documents
The qd documentsTM application is aimed at smaller cases. Because of that, our users often scan and code all their documents in-house, and we've therefore built document coding right into the software.
We've built in an easy-to-use import functionality, too, and many of our users tell us they'd like to get their documents scanned and coded by someone else and just import the data.
Why go outside for coding and scanning?
There are some good reasons for having someone else code and scan your documents:
- It can be a lot faster. If you're coding your own documents, it can take quite a while. If you want to skip that step and go straight to using your database, it makes sense to use a service to scan and code your documents.
- It can be a lot cheaper. The companies that do scanning and coding do it efficiently. They've got the right equipment, the right processes, the right kind of staff. Even after profit is built in, their work is going to be cheaper than the same work done by typical law firm personnel, especially if those personnel are lawyers or paralegals.
- You'll get better, more consistent data. Coding work done by a professional service is usually more reliable than coding work done by a lawyer and paralegal.
- Remember: When we talk about "coding", we're talking about the recording of objective data -- things like dates, document types, and names. We aren't asking the outside coder to decide what's important, we're just asking them to record objective data accurately and consistently, so you can get your database up and running and searchable.
- It's still up to you to do the subjective work, once you've loaded your database.
- It lets you focus on lawyer work. As noted in the point above, it's still up to you to do the subjective analysis of the document collection.
- You need to decide what's important and what's not, which documents relate to which issues and witnesses, which documents help you or hurt you. A searchable database -- one where the objective data has already been recorded -- makes the subjective work a lot easier.
There are a handful of possible negatives, too:
- It's an expense. That's not necessarily a negative, but it depends on your case and your client. Sometimes it's easier to do the work yourself -- even though it costs the client more -- than to get the client to approve an expense.
- It doesn't add to your billable time. Someone else will bill the coding work.
- For some lawyers, that's a good thing. They don't like billing for what is essentially a clerical task, and often they'll cut those hours anyway, reducing their overall billings.
- It removes one review step. Some lawyers find that manually coding the documents helps them focus during their first review. But many other lawyers feel it's unnecessary -- they'll be spending plenty of time analyzing and reviewing the documents, they say, and they'd prefer to do it after the documents were searchable and organized.
But who will code and scan a small case?
The problem for lawyers who want to get their small cases scanned and coded is this: A lot of the big, high-quality service companies that do this kind of work aren't interested in handling small cases. If you tell them you've only got a box or two of documents, they lose interest. They want jobs with at least 100,000 pages. And the little firms that express an interest in small cases too often don't have the skills to do it well.
So we've started looking for companies that have the experience and skills to do the job well, but are willing to take on small jobs.
Why would they do that?
- Because we asked. Jim and I have a long history in this industry, and we've brought a lot of work to the companies that provide these services. We can get an audience with them, and we're willing to work with them to develop a process that makes business sense for these small cases.
- And we're willing to act as intermediaries, so they have a consistent point of contact. They don't have to educate each user individually.
- Because the qd documents application provides a standard. We're able to give the service provider a standardized "order" so that they can treat small jobs like a batch in a big job. They don't have to do a lot of set-up work for each job.
And one more reason: Because they'd like to be your service provider when you do get that million-page case.
What does it cost?
Here are some preliminary prices. Please contact us directly, and we'll help you get a firm price quote and a schedule for your project.
Document scanning
15 cents / page
Your documents will be scanned into standard litigation formats, TIFF and JPEG. You'll receive data that's ready for direct loading into the qd documents application, including directories of your images and a qd-ready cross-reference file.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
3 cents / page
The text of your scanned documents will be extracted and stored in qd-ready data files that can be imported directly into your qd documents database.
Note that OCR is a process that "recognizes" printed text characters by their shape and converts them into computer-readable text. This is very different from the process that extracts text that's already computer-readable from an electronic document such as a Microsoft Word file (or from a PDF document that was created from a Word file). The quality of OCR-generated text is variable and highly dependent on the quality of the original documents.
Document coding
6 to 18 cents / page
You can choose the level of detail you want captured from your documents during coding. Two levels are available. Both levels include "document boundary determination" -- that is, determining the starting and ending point of each document. The options are:
- Basic - 6 cents / page
- This level of coding captures beginning and ending document numbers, beginning and ending master numbers, the document date, and the document type for each document.
- Full bibliographic - 18 cents / page
- This level of coding captures all the data in the Basic option, but it also includes the document title, the author, the recipient, and copyees.
So it's possible to get your documents scanned and coded for as little as 21 cents per page. In most cases, we'd recommend upgrading to full bibliographic coding, for a total cost (with scanning) of 33 cents per page. If you want to add OCRed full text, that's another 3 cents.
A caveat
Note that I've simplified these prices just a bit. While scanning and OCR pricing is priced by the page, the coding work is priced by the document. I've converted that to page-based pricing for simplicity, assuming an average document size of four pages. If your document collection has a higher or lower page-count per document, the per-page costs will vary accordingly.
In any case, for right now, these prices are estimates. The condition of your document collection will affect pricing. The number of pages per document, the staples, bindings, and paper sizes -- all these things could affect the amount of work involved and therefore the pricing.
However, we'll work hard with you up front to make sure that all those variables are recognized and factored into the pricing right up front.
What does Magellan's Law involvement cost?
The coding and scanning work won't be done by Magellan's Law Corporation. Instead, we're lining up service providers that we've worked with before, and we're defining a standard approach that they can use with all the work that comes from our qd documents users.
We're also going to act as an intermediary between you and those providers, so we can be sure that things work smoothly.
So, you ask, what is that Magellan's Law involvement going to cost?
Nothing. We're providing this as a service to our qd documents users.
At some point, once we're sure the process is completely standardized and running smoothly on its own, we plan to get out of the way and just put our clients in touch directly with the service providers. For now, however, we want to be "hands on" in order to ensure the whole process works effectively and smoothly for our users.
How do you get started?
If you think this approach might work for your case, let us know. We'll spend some time with you, answer your questions, and collect information about your document collection. Then we'll talk to the service providers who do the work and make sure it can be done the way you want at the price you want.
For more information, please contact either one of us:
