We often receive inquiries from lawyers who want to know what to do with their old paper files. Many times, these lawyers have decades worth of closed paper files, some of which they inherited from their former law partners who have since moved to other firms, retired or passed away.  The task of dealing with all this paper can be daunting; but continuing to store the files can be expensive.  And at some point before the lawyer retires, the files need to be dealt with. We offer the following guidelines to help manage all of this paper in accordance with the lawyer’s ethical responsibilities: 

If your firm has a document retention policy, then you should follow the provisions in that policy to determine how to deal with old client files.   

If you do not have a document retention policy, then you should adopt one…