Why lawyers love paper

I have - for a long time now - been confounded by the lack of adoption by attorneys when it comes to the 'paperless office'.  There are some great tools available - which are improving all the time which make the paperless office entirely possible.  So its not for a lack of good technology.

Adoption is the key to any technology initiative, and efforts to create the paperless office often run into problems when it comes to 'how to read a document'.  Lawyers prefer paper to reading on screen.  Thanks to Scientific American magazine, I have a new understanding of the issue of paper vs. on-screen reading.

Turns out - there is a scientific reason for a preference for paper.  (read the article here).   So what's the solution?

First step - recognize that attorneys will continue reading from paper.

Next Step: efficiently facilitate creating paper copies of documents.  My suggestion:  (a) in the context of the paperless office, continue to scan everything and (b) create a way to easily print a 'reading copy' for lawyers to work from.   The reading-copy would likely be identified by a footer added to the MS-Word document or PDF document which indicates date-printed, version number of the document, and a notation indicating "Reading Copy - not for filing".

Are you already doing this?  Comments and suggestions welcome!