Most great attorneys didn’t get where they are alone.

While the best attorneys are no doubt talented and deserving, most of them become so because they have a strong support network, hard at work in the background. And perhaps no element of this crucial support system is more important than the paralegal. Paralegals are behind-the-scenes magicians–essential to the work of the successful attorney, and an indispensable element to the success of a firm.  After all, one of the most important elements of practicing law is building an effective team to serve clients in the best manner possible.  

Happy, productive, talented paralegals are critical to making that goal a reality.

Want a Productive Firm? Start With a Happy Paralegal

Paralegals handle countless tasks on behalf of the attorneys they work for. Research, review and organization of client files, preparation of documents, drafting of pleadings, organization and collection of evidence, and assistance with an endless array of legal tasks all fall under their umbrella.

Simply put: effective paralegals make for effective law firms. It’s tough to have one without the other.

If you’re an attorney who has been practicing for any length of time, you know this is true.  And if you know that’s true, then you likely understand another important truth as well–if someone is essential to the day-to-day operations of your firm, you want to keep them happy! After all, a happy paralegal makes a happier attorney, which in turn, contributes to a happier, more productive, and more positive working experience for the entire firm. Seems pretty simple and straightforward, right?

You would think so, but unfortunately, this is not always the case.

The Disconnect Between Theory and Practice

Even though most attorneys know their paralegal’s role is critical, the day-to-day experience often tells a different story.

We’ve heard the same thing from paralegals again and again: they’re overworked, stressed, and frustrated—especially by inefficient tasks that feel outdated in our digital age.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The right technology may not be able to solve every problem a paralegal faces—but it definitely can help with a few big ones.

eDiscovery in the Digital Age

The world has been fundamentally transformed by social media, and the legal world is no exception. 

• 5.2 – 5.4 billion people now use social platforms worldwide, representing approximately 64% of the global population (talkwalker.com).

• Each user visits an average of 6.8 different social networks per month (sproutsocial.com).

• On average, people spend 2 hours 19 minutes daily on social media (coolnerdsmarketing.com).

• Social media adoption grows at a steady ~4–5% per year, meaning 70+ million new users every quarter (talkwalker.com).

Platform-specific data reveals the staggering scale:

Source: LocaliQ

Even more importantly for those in the practice of law, studies have shown that the number of published cases involving social media evidence is nearly doubling every couple of years. eDiscovery is evolving to adapt and the technology used to conduct that discovery is also evolving at an increasingly rapid rate.

Unfortunately, many legal practices aren’t evolving at the same pace. Evidence collection methods, like taking screenshots, have become incredibly inefficient in the face of how much social media content is generated every minute and how quickly it can disappear. Remaining stuck in the data collection practices of the past is bad business–for you, for your clients, and, often especially, for your paralegal.

When paralegals have to spend hours scrolling, capturing, formatting, printing, and validating posts for court, it’s not just time-consuming—it’s inefficient and risky.

Paralegal Problems: Screenshot Evidence

The increased use of social media evidence in the courtroom is causing major headaches for your paralegal.

In the majority of firms without an IT support team, the responsibility for capturing the digital evidence needed in an increasingly vast number of cases often falls to the paralegals. Everyday we meet with firms that are still using outdated collection practices and the issues it is causing for everyone involved. Rather than spending their time productively completing necessary research, or drafting important pleadings, or coordinating other important aspects of your caseload, paralegals are trapped in front of the computer, endlessly taking screenshot after screenshot, and slowly but surely accumulating a mountain of paperwork to sift through and organize.

As if this weren’t bad enough, the nature of social media often makes the taking of screenshots even more arduous, and in many cases, risky for the ultimate outcome of your case. We’ve seen many examples of cases where one party is an avid social media poster and it has taken over a week simply to print the contents of one Facebook account. One person’s account alone can amount to hundreds and hundreds of printable pages. The nature of a screenshot means that capturing long-pages with scrolling, expandable content is next to impossible. As a result, if you’re trying to capture the entire Facebook account of a very active poster, for example, your paralegal will be stuck capturing it in many separate sections, for hours, and hours, and hours.  That’s not even to mention the time spent organizing all of those screenshots after they’ve been printed.

On top of that, beyond the exasperation of printing, organizing, and keeping track of hundreds of pages, your paralegal will also likely encounter some frustrating formatting issues that will have to be addressed, and will add even more stress and time to an already exasperating process.

Then, as if this weren’t already enough, we would be remiss to mention the fact that presenting a screenshot is a risky proposition in most courts. To make sure it is accepted by the courts as evidence, you'll have to spend ample time obtaining and preparing affidavits to accompany those screenshots—which is likely more work that will fall onto your paralegal’s plate.  And even after you’ve asked your paralegal to spend endless hours printing, sorting, organizing, and obtaining affidavits, there are still no guarantees that your evidence will hold up in court.

That is because screenshots can easily be altered, and do not contain essential metadata necessary to prove authenticity. There’s a decent likelihood that after putting your paralegal through the exhausting process of gathering and organizing all of that material, you won’t be able to use it in court anyway, as countless cases make clear. Sounds like a recipe for disaster and discontent, if you ask us.

The Problems with Screenshots:

• Volume: One social media account can produce hundreds of pages of content.

• Poor formatting: Long, scrolling content and nested comments are nearly impossible to capture cleanly.

• Authentication issues: Screenshots don’t contain metadata and are easily altered.

• Extra paperwork: Affidavits are often needed to validate them in court.

• Risky results: Even after all that work, the evidence may still not be admissible.

This cycle creates frustration, burnout, and unnecessary risk. It’s not good for paralegals—and it’s not good for your firm.

Rethinking Digital Evidence Collection --- For Everyone's Sake

Here’s the good news: forward-looking legal teams are investing in tools that simplify this process. There are now incredibly efficient and effective solutions that allow long pages of social media evidence to be:

• Captured with a single click, even across complex, scrolling web content

• Automatically time-stamped and hash-verified for defensibility in court

• Organized and searchable, reducing the need for manual sorting or printing

• Exported in standard formats suitable for review, sharing, or presentation in legal proceedings

What might take days or weeks using screenshots and affidavits can now be accomplished in minutes, with greater reliability and legal strength.

By shifting to streamlined, automated collection methods, law firms reduce risk, reclaim valuable time, and create a more sustainable workload for paralegals.

What once took weeks with screenshots now takes minutes. That means less stress, more productivity—and a much happier paralegal.

Happy Paralegal → Productive Firm → Satisfied Clients

When paralegals are overwhelmed with repetitive, manual tasks, their ability to contribute meaningfully to a case suffers. The result? Stress, missed deadlines, burnout—and ultimately, a drop in overall firm performance.

Embracing modern approaches to evidence collection, instead of relying on time-consuming, error-prone methods like screenshots and manual organization, reduces tedious administrative work, empowers paralegals to focus on higher-value tasks—and in turn, delivers better outcomes for clients.

Because behind every successful attorney is a strong, supported paralegal—and behind every successful legal team is the technology that helps them thrive.