by Bailey White
Staff Writer
Clay Cross and Bruce Franklin are working to make life easier for the attorneys and their legal staff who spend half their day sorting through a sea of paper.
Cross and Franklin own Downtown Document Imaging, which specializes in establishing electronic filing systems for law firms and getting the firms on track to a more efficient work environment.
“There is a huge efficiency that comes from working with electronic files instead of paper,” said Franklin.
They point to a recent study that says up to 500 hours a year can be spent looking for files.
“The manual act of retrieving a file can take seven minutes,” said Cross. “And with an electronic system, it doesn’t have to be refiled.”
So far things are going well for the company, and Cross, who also owns and operates the Downtown Business Center in Independent Square. He believes their success comes from the combination of their experiences: Cross as an owner and operator of a legal copy center, and Franklin, who owns a Westside scanning center and has years of experience consulting for companies such as Wachovia.
“Bruce’s knowledge is extensive and together we make up something unique that no one else can do locally,” said Cross.
Franklin agrees, adding their commitment to service also helps distinguish them from other companies.
“We bring the added value of sitting down with an attorney, assessing the firm’s needs and consulting with them on a system that would work best,” he said.
Besides electronic filing systems, Downtown Document Imaging can help an attorney produce technology-based presentation materials for courtroom appearances.
The men spoke at the Jacksonville Area Defense Council’s December meeting about electronic presentation elements, including video depositions, which Franklin said are easy for an attorney to use.
“They require a lot of set up on our part, but are simple to use and really add an electronic bang to a presentation,” said Franklin.
As a testament to customer service, Franklin said they’ll work with a client in the initial phase of a courtroom presentation, no matter how high or low tech a courtroom may be.
“Any time one of our clients needs any kind of technical support, we’re there to hold their hand,” said Franklin.
It’s easy to do with a number of tools designed for dealing with attorney-specific needs. A “smart sheet” is scanned with documents and captures information such as the type of document, the date filed and even how the document was originally bound.
“Six months down the road we could produce the document exactly how it looked originally,” said Franklin.
While their business is equipped with the tools to help larger firms handle their files, including the largest scanning facility in Jacksonville, Franklin said their main business comes from smaller firms.
“Our market is more towards the firms who don’t have a full time IT staff,” he said. “We also work well with professions that have similar needs, like some commercial real estate firms.”
To make themselves more available to the legal community, Cross and Franklin send out a monthly newsletter.
“We see ourselves as an extension of their business,” said Cross.
This philosophy, along with their desire to understand a client’s needs, is the secret to Downtown Document Imaging’s success.
“Anybody can turn paper into a CD,” said Cross, “but we are really relationship based.”