The way in which your business files documents could be costing you money. Independent expert witness’ are engaged on behalf of a client and most communications regarding the project that come out of the CJK office to the client are through the client’s lawyers.

CJK’S EXPERIENCE

Whilst working on a recent large-scale litigation matter, all CJK staff members were needed at some point.  CJK Fire & Safety’s special expert witness, Christina Knorr, was engaged to draft four litigation compliant reports and received hundreds of documents from the client’s lawyers.

Throughout the process of document review, additional hours were billed to the client due to there being issues with filing.

A construction litigation case, especially one involving contentious aluminium composite panels, can consist of hundreds to thousands of documents being received by parties involved in the case. When drafting an expert witness report for a construction case, photographs, as-built drawings, previous expert and fire related reports, construction certificates and other additional documents are generally required in order to write an accurate report to assist the Court with the matter at hand.

When communication involves hundreds of documents, it is not unusual to encounter issues. When documents are sent in bulk, not grouped together, incorrectly or obscurely named, or are missing from the correspondence entirely, it can take more hours for team members in the CJK office to sift through each individual document in order to file them correctly.

Further, if requested documents are not received by the expert witness, their reports may have to be put on hold. This can mean that the litigation process is delayed. Delaying the litigation can cost the client even more money in legal fees.

For law firms especially, where the timely retrieval of documents is vital in legislative procedures, ensuring that an effective filing system is in place eradicates the potential loss of time had the files been otherwise difficult to identify and locate.

CONCLUSION

Effective filing can result in many benefits. One being – it is cost effective. Ensuring your business has an effective filing method can result in increased productivity and efficiency with less time wasted on tasks such as locating documents.