Earth Day – “Green” Law Office

Today, April 22nd, is Earth Day. It may be interesting to note that offices in United States consume enough paper every year to build a 10-foot high, 6,815 mile-long wall of paper (this is enough to build a paper fence between New York and Tokyo).

We, at the Capitol Immigration Law Group, are committed to being environmentally friendly office and are working on eliminating unnecessary paper from our practice. What makes us a “green” law office:

• we love our scanners – we scan every piece of paper that comes across our desk, we encrypt it and archive it securely, and unless we need to preserve the paper original – we shred it;
• we love PDFs and our Blackberries – we communicate electronically 99% of the time;
• we love being online, and so do most of our clients – we are working on a contract with online client management service provider where our clients will be able to login and obtain instant, electronic and paper-free updates on their case;
• we love that blue star logo – we have switched our office electronics to be “Energy Star” compliant and, when possible, have set our equipment to turn itself down after short period of inactivity;
• we are not so fond of our printers – but if paper is necessary and if it is appropriate, we print double sided.

We would like to extend a call to our readers, clients and colleagues to embrace a “green” office mentality and think for a second before pressing the “Print” button on the computer, before leaving the office in the evening with the lights on, and before leaving the computer on before going home for the weekend. We have one planet and we should do our best to keep it green.