Ensuring that your legal contracts and other important documents are safe and secure is of utmost importance. Should they become lost or damaged, they can be incredibly difficult to replace, so you should make yourself aware of the best practices in keeping them safe and secure.

By protecting your writings now, you will save yourself a great deal of time, effort, and potentially even money in the future by avoiding and mitigating the need to replace them.

 

What Are Legal Writings?

As everyone likely has an entire cabinet full of important forms and letters, it may be difficult to distinguish legal writing from a document that is simply important to keep around. The important ones to secure can be split into five categories; employment, family, real estate, finance, and business.

• Employment. Employment writings include contracts (past and current), any reference letters you might have, and resignation letters. As future employers may need at least the first two, these should be thoroughly looked after.
• Family. This also includes personal documents – though not necessarily ID – wills, medical data, and power of attorney for you and your family are amongst family legal writings. It is possible that protecting them could mean the difference between life and death.
• Real Estate. Lease agreements, property deeds, and eviction notices can all be categorized under real estate legal writings. If you ever need to contest an eviction or combat rental changes, you will need to have these to hand.
• Finance. Bills of sale for any major expenditure are important to keep as they prevent anyone else from contesting ownership. Invoices and IOUs also ensure you are properly paid any agreed-upon amounts from other parties.
• Business. This last one only applies to people running their own business, and typically these writings consist of business plans and written agreements and are stored separately from other legal documents.

 

How Should I Secure My Writings?

Different methods may be used to secure your legal writings, and some may be preferable to others depending on the person and the writings they are securing. Here are three tips that are recommended for keeping your legal writings safe.

 

Use Sufficient Storage

Keeping all of your writings loose and scattered will inevitably lead to damages and potential loss. Not only should you keep the originals neat and tidy, but you should also implement some sort of filing cabinet or safe for storage. For the documents you rarely need to utilize, you could keep them in a safe deposit box where they are less likely to be lost or damaged.

If you decide to use a home safe or cabinet for the safekeeping of your writings, quality is necessary. A one-time investment for storage that is of sufficient size as well as waterproof and heat resistant will ensure your writings’ safety even in the event of a flood or fire. Utilize a strong lock to mitigate the chances of theft.

Remember, it is better to spend a few hundred dollars on a safe than double or triple that amount replacing your writings.

 

Make Copies

Even if you do not have a device with photocopying capacity at home, most people will be able to find one, whether through a friend or the local library. By making copies and keeping them in different, secure locations, you can ensure that a simple accident or case of forgetfulness will not completely deprive you of those important legal writings.

While you should certainly not make too many copies in case they fall into the wrong hands, making a few for each important piece of writing will allow you to utilize safe deposit boxes while still having an easily-readable copy nearby. You could even have your attorney keep a copy with them to ensure they are looked after.

 

Use Digital Storage

The benefits of utilizing technology for storing your legal writings cannot be understated. Keeping copies of your essential documents on a flash drive or a hard drive means you are unlikely to lose them. More importantly, however, online storage ensures that your records will never be lost no matter what happens, be it theft or tragedy.

By utilizing an online storage platform such as OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Docs/Drive, you can not only keep non-physical copies of your legal writings secure but also access them anywhere and at any time. With only a phone and an internet connection, you will be able to see and download your legal writings from any cloud-based platform.

If you only have physical versions of your writings, you can simply scan them and upload them to an online storage platform in a matter of seconds. Many printers have scanners these days, and if yours does not, taking a high-quality picture of the writing in question will do the same job.

 

Author Bio: 

Susan Noel is an experienced content writer. She is associated with many renowned business and law blogs as a guest author where she shares her valuable articles with the audience.