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22 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 not returned it. Whatever the cause, the impact can be catastrophic. There's no way to recreate these documents. They can't be reconstructed by going back through your electronic files. And think of the disruption as offices are turned upside down to relocate them, followed by the consequences if they're really lost. Firms can face malpractice suits and serious reputational hits. Thankfully, there's a reliable, cost-effective way to conduct inventories using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that gives firms far greater control of these vital documents. Marathon running and dog tagging At LegalRM we know about original document management because one of our clients has a fire suppression vault holding around 40,000 folders some of which contain up to 1,000 individual documents. The job of manually taking inventory in this vault was taking this firm around three months (for a full-time staff member), on each occasion. Now that the firm has introduced RFID technology and our supporting software, the entire inventory can comfortably be concluded in less than an hour! You're probably already more familiar with RFID than you realize. It's a form of wireless communication that's actually existed since the 1940s. RFID tags are miniscule chips containing a unique identifier that can be read remotely and store information. RFID readers use radio waves to transmit signals that activate the tags to send a radio wave back that's translated into data. There's a wide range of uses for RFID from tracking pets and livestock and supply chain logistics to tagging marathon runners and triathletes so their times can be accurately recorded. RFID is also very widely used in inventory management. You might also recall that a while back there was some interest in using RFID technology in law firms. Indeed, LegalRM worked with firms, around 15 years ago, on the feasibility of installing RFID systems. But at that time tags and readers were expensive and readers were static. It meant there were significant infrastructure costs to putting fixed readers into all the doorways of dispersed depositories. Plus, those systems could only yield fairly limited information. They could tell you a document had gone past a given reader. But beyond that they gave no further help in locating a missing article. The high costs of installation, plus the low utility of the solution, meant that back then it just didn't make sense for firms to invest in RFID. How to conduct an RFID inventory The good news is that RFID technology has moved on considerably since then. Today's pre-programmed RFID tags cost around 20 cents (17 pence) each and handheld readers cost about USD$1,100. That's all the hardware you need to get started. It's then a question of doing inventories as before, but this time attaching RFID tags to all the necessary folders, then scanning the barcode and RFID tag. The barcode data is pulled through and sent by Bluetooth to whichever device you select: be that your smart phone, tablet, laptop or desktop. Then the software on your device– will register each article. So now you have a complete RFID inventory. The next time the firm wants or needs to conduct an audit, it's a question of opening the software and then using the reader in the proximity of the RFID tags. Note that unlike barcodes, the reader doesn't need a line of sight. In fact, the system we use will work at a range of up to 30 meters and happily through glass and wood (but it doesn't do so well with metal.) 1 You walk through the vault pointing the handheld reader at every shelf. The reader wakes up each tag, collects its data and sends it to the software. Each tag can be read in less than 100th of a millisecond. 2 In our experience the F E A T U R E S

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