Law departments seem reluctant to insist that their law firms deliver all work product electronically. The requirement may be a common request in outside counsel guidelines but there is little enthusiasm for enforcement. Maybe the ugly truth is that in-house lawyers don’t make use of the output from law firms. They don’t have effective means to store and retrieve the information so why bother to collect it. Or perhaps they sense that it is unlikely they will need the research or documents in the future.
Perhaps the lack of compliance can be partially remedied if law firms deliver each quarter a CD of the work product.