Ask why something is done a certain way and you’ll sometimes hear, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” It usually means nobody has stopped to think about a new way. People are going through the motions.
There’s a related habit that’s harder to spot. As work moves to digital workflows, people agree to change, then rebuild the old process as closely as they can. It’s the same habit, applied to digital files.
Folders are the clearest example
On paper, documents went in folders, and folders went in file cabinets. A paper document could only be in one folder.
Digital folders were built on the same mental model. If a file is in one folder, it isn’t in another.
Tags work differently:
Tag a document and you can pull up every document with that tag, the way you’d open a folder.
You do it on the fly. You don’t have to decide in advance where something lives.
A document can have several tags, because it may relate to more than one thing.
An example from litigation
This may not seem to come up much in law practice, but it can. I worked on cases that were consolidated. They were filed separately, with separate docket numbers, and the court treated them together. The court could have unconsolidated them, but usually didn’t.
If you track those cases as two matters, folders make you think about putting a copy of each filing in both. With tags, you tag the document with both matters, and that’s the end of it.
A folder is just a way to see where grouped documents are. Tags can group documents too.
Why we keep making folders
Tags have been around for a long time, and many people understand the limits of folders. I still see lawyers gravitate toward them. Folders are their main mental model for organizing digital documents, and they have trouble letting go.
Links are another example
The digital world makes new things possible, including automations. Links are a simple case. It’s easy to forget that you can link straight to a document. For certain types of documents, you don’t need to explain what it is or write out a citation. You can link to it.
That’s a mental block for many lawyers.
Your turn
I’m sure there are other workflows where people think, “We have to do it this way.” What’s one you’re still carrying over from the paper days?
;-)
Ernie
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