Does a Picture Really Speak a Thousand Words?
(part of an ongoing series about scanned paper)

Whether we like it or not, technology is not only becoming part of the legal world, but oftentimes taking it over by storm.  Where we once received paper, we now receive .tiffs, .pdfs and native files.  Where we once could organize the paper in binders or boxes, we now use a combination of tools to view, search, organize and review our much more voluminous and complex set of discovery on our computers because there is just simply too much material to print out. 

In adapting to the influx of electronic discovery, we have to realize that not all electronic discovery is created equal.  Native files such as Word documents and Excel spreadsheets come with a host of information about the file as part of its metadata (a topic we will cover later in our series), while paper that has been scanned and turned into electronic discovery in formats such as .tiff and .pdf are really just pictures of the pieces of paper we once clipped, stapled and three-hole punched.  We can now do more to those pieces of paper once they have been scanned, but keep in mind that they are just pictures of the real thing and unlike the native files we get, these pictures don’t really say as much as we want them to.

 Things to consider: 

• Is the document searchable?  Is there associated text with the .tiffs and have the .pdfs been OCRed?  If not, should you consider having the documents OCRed?

• Are the documents unitized?  Do you know where one document ends and the next one begins?  Is there a load file that shows you the document breaks?  If not, should you consider unitization?

• Was there objective coding done?  Is there a load file that provides you with the objective coding?  If not, should you consider objective coding? 

• Should you run a document inventory to get a better handle on the various file formats that may be included in the discovery?  Are there color images?  Will you need to take that into consideration when you need to print the documents?  Are there formats that require you to have the associated application in order for you to view the document or database? Are there load files included that may contain objective coding?  

• Do you already have programs that you are currently using that can handle the viewing, organization and review of scanned paper?  Can it handle one format and not another (i.e. Adobe can handle .pdfs but not .tiffs)?  Do you need to convert your scanned paper into one format that you can handle?  If you don’t already have a program, then what types of programs should you consider?

Up next:

Part II: Searchable Scanned Documents
Can you Really Find that Needle in the Haystack?