I recently read an interesting column at Law.com’s Legal Technology Blog about attorneys moving to virtual fax services.
I agree with much of what the author has to say in this post. In short, virtual fax services are great. I have used one for years. When I recently opened my own solo practice I never even considered buying a fax machine.
The author points out that virtual fax services have a variety of benefits including:
- Let you go mobile
- Improve privacy
- Increase security
- Keep a team informed
- Keep faxes organized and available
- Reduce costs and environmental footprint
Jump over and read the entire post. He makes some excellent points.
As I was reading his post, however, I was struck by the thought of whether this is the right tactic to be taking. Yes, virtual faxing has great benefits. In my book, however, the benefits are no greater than the benefits of engaging in the same communication via email. I use a virtual fax service because there are attorneys who still refuse to communicate via email. I can’t imagine that these attorneys are suddenly going to move to using a virtual fax service.
My question is, shouldn’t we be trying to move these attorneys to using email?
However, if you are like me and still dealing with attorneys who insist on using a fax machine, go to a virtual fax service. You will never regret the move. It’s as close to moving your communications to email as you are likely to get in today’s legal world.
I agree that virtual faxing is great – but my communication is very casual and confirmation is not that critical.
When sending a virtual fax, does your service provider send you confirmation when it gets to the other end?
Then if the receiver has a virtual fax number – the physical fax gets confirmation when the fax handshakes with the “central server”, and it reports “successful” but the recipient may never get the fax, as it could fail, and then there is no way for the central server to fax back to the physical fax to advise them.
Is this the same with your providers?
I have heard of this problem before. Further, I can’t tell you exactly how the faxing process with my provider works. What I can say, however, is that I have been using the service for 5 years. During that time, I have never had anyone not receive a fax that my service told me had been delivered successfully.
We had a very quick uptake here in South Africa, then the brakes were jumped on when lawyers realized the cost of sending to a virtual fax (about 5x as much) and second the fact that a few faxes were missing – with no trace of the problem.
Would like to know how big firms have handled the virtual fax.
Hi Bryan, great post! Your comment is something that we hear a lot. The reality is that faxing is far more secure than email. The big difference between the two is that an intercepted email can be reassembled and read; whereas an intercepted fax will just show up as electronic noise. As a result, faxing is the only legally acceptable way to transmit sensitive information like electronic medical records, and why it is preferred by many other industries. As long as email and wireless networks can be hacked, this will continue to be true.
Sam