As of January 1^st, 2012, PDF software with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capability will be required of all lawyers who file documents with the Southern District of Florida courts according to an administrative procedures document published here (Section 3G, Article 5).  Text searchable documents are now commonplace for court filings and the growing trend of using less paper can make a law firm not only environmentally friendly but also more efficient.

Nitro offers an industry-leading OCR solution in Nitro Pro 7 with a partnership from I.R.I.S.  I.R.I.S. is one of the foremost companies in OCR technology that allows written text to be converted and recognized electronically.  Want to search for that typo in your 100 page brief?  You just found the section in the legal reporter that corresponds directly to your case but don’t want to scan and send the whole manuscript?  Or you simply want to email certain parts of your handwritten notes to a coworker?  Nitro Pro 7 allows you to not only use OCR quickly and easily but you can also highlight, add sticky notes, and insert text directly into your PDF document.

Although it is certainly a big step, the ability to reference court filings in text searchable formats like PDF with OCR will not only reduce the cost of buying paper, ink, and courier services but will minimize the headache of maintaining the massive file rooms for clerks and paralegals.  Nitro Pro 7 is available with OCR automatically included for a free 14-day trial here: www.nitropdf.com/try/.