Attorneys might ask why courts can't simply image paper documents without changing the way they now do things. The answer is what the business community concluded. Courts cannot afford to continue to work the way they have been working. Efficiencies must be sought and adopted. Electronic legal documents can provide many benefits by freeing people from the tyranny of paper.
Electronic documents allow the case file to be searched by computer.
No longer will judges and attorneys need to try to remember in which pleading a particular point was made. Perhaps this attitude comes from the years of using libraries where information was often cataloged by the Dewey Decimal System. Like card catalogs, new word-processing programs enforce order by requiring the user to describe what the document is. Detailed categorization and numerical edification are relics of the paper-based system. As long as one has electronic case folders and subdirectories, the document can be found.