Scanning alone can already be very useful with small document populations, but really proves its worth with larger numbers of pages. Scanning and recording on CD-ROM allows the attorney to access all documents at any time without the need and loss of time required to pull a paper copy (at the risk of misplacing it). When the CD-ROMs are made available through a network, all lawyers working on a given case can have unrestricted access to all documents without having to take turns or track down missing documents or documents in use by their colleagues.
Scanning services are widely available in Europe at a cost often less than similar services in the US. However, care must be taken in selecting and supervising these service providers as their experience of scanning for litigation purposes is extremely limited. This can lead to unfortunate or critical delays and unnecessary expense.
OCR really becomes a most useful tool when mass translation of non-English language documents becomes necessary. Having created and corrected word processing files of the non-English document, the files can be processed by one of the increasingly accurate translation programmes available. Even beyond the translation field, the use of ORC together with the increasingly powerful full text search engines offers potential for more powerful analytical use of this developing technology.