by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Paper hasn’t really changed much since it was invented by the Egyptians circa 3,000 B.C. But the way people, particularly people like attorneys and other professionals, handle and manage paper documents has been completely transformed in the last couple of decades.
That’s the experience of Dave Luyando, president of Jacksonville Document Services LLC, also known as JaxDox.
“Fifteen years ago when I got into this business, the only source of documents was file cabinets stuffed with papers,” said Luyando. “Now it’s mostly electronic documents printed from software. We’ve gone from 100 percent paper to 70 percent electronic.”
Luyando also said he has watched the way users have to deal with how their documents have changed during his career.
“I remember in the old days, I’d see attorneys on the trains in New York City carrying a briefcase and dragging a dolly stacked with boxes (of documents) behind them,” he said. “When digital first came on the scene, that changed to a couple of CDs in the briefcase. Now you see them working on their laptops and accessing the documents over wireless Internet.”
The company specializes in a relatively new technology called Electronic Data Discovery (EDD). Basically, it involves scanning documents and converting them to digital files that are easily indexed, stored and even transported depending on the needs of each client and situation. That can mean a few boxes of files up to projects like the AOL and Time-Warner merger that Luyando worked on several years ago.
“There were 6,000 boxes of paper documents that were accumulated in five years and it takes more than one law firm to handle a merger and acquisition of that magnitude,” he explained. “We made five copies of each document so by the time we were finished we were looking at 36,000 boxes of documents. Now we could convert all those pieces of paper into an electronic repository that could even be posted on-line with different security levels with access based on individual passwords.”
In terms of litigation, Luyando said EDD offers the advantage of reducing the time it takes to analyze the content of documents and makes individual pages much easier to locate quickly. Boxes of discovery documents, for example, can be converted into digital files and then indexed and cross-referenced based on as many as 250 criteria.
“We can process up to 30,000 documents an hour and put them in a format that can save hundreds of hours in terms of managing a case,” he said. “We identify and mark duplicates and non-compatible document formats and EDD makes it easy to refine documents to make them easier to review. The process gives attorneys the advantage of spending less time reviewing the documents they have been given in discovery which gives them more time to prepare for the settlement conference or trial.”
In addition to working with attorneys, Luyando said JaxDox also offers services tailored for physicians and clinics and mortgage and title companies – any type of business that has a lot of documents that have to be managed or stored. He said the paper contents of 134 four-drawer file cabinets can be converted to digital files and stored on a portable hard drive you can hold in your hand that costs about $120.
“Just freeing up office space that has been used for document storage can be a tremendous savings for a business,” said Luyando, adding costs involved in off-site record storage and retrieval can be reduced or eliminated with electronic storage.
Luyando relocated from New York and opened JaxDox a month ago. In addition to services provided at the processing facility Downtown on Ocean Street, the company also offers on-site document processing for material that’s so sensitive it can’t leave its location for security reasons. Luyando also installed a state-of-the-art surveillance system at the base facility.
“JaxDox is not Kinko’s. It’s not intended for the general public and we really don’t provide any kind of walk-in service,” he said. “When my landlord saw the surveillance and security system we installed he said I had more security than a bank.”
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