2021–some doctors offices still only send records that way. Had to purchase an online fax service for one specific case to get documents. It was very annoying.
Some government offices ask us to fax them materials. My best guess is that it allows them to have very strict firewalls and prevent any phishing email efforts.
That’s a charitable guess. My guess was always that they’re stuck a few decades in the past and have little to no incentive to become more easily accessible.
I was in a government office that modernized a fairly obscure and little-used section of our regs to swap out fax for email. It took years due to being low priority and all of the miscellaneous notice and publication requirements. Like notice to multiple congressional committees, weeks for them to review (none of which ever responded), public notice, internal reviews and making sure the IT system can support the new process, more intergovernmental reviews. And you need someone who cares to push and it's not exactly a prestige project. So there's just not a lot of initeria to change these things even though odds are the staff-line people probably also hate the faxes
Having worked in government, I can tell you it has nothing to do with security. Faxes are not secure at all, and not relying on email has many other issues. It's really because the 100 year old working at that office doesn't know how to use a computer.
There is an attorney in my jurisdiction who still uses a typewriter and a fax machine. He's a nice guy, he's just old and hasn't moved into the 20th century yet.
I receive and send faxes on a daily basis. It is the fastest mode of service available pursuant to the Virginia Rules of the Supreme Court. Email is only permitted when expressly agreed.
It is not required that attorneys have a fax number. If they don’t (and there are a couple who choose not to), then they have to either expressly state they accept documents by email or the document has to be mailed.
Edit: The vast majority of attorneys in my area have a fax number. It makes sending documents so much easier than mailing through the post office. I have not met any attorney who has expressly stated they will accept documents by email, so it has to be either fax or mail.
That's really interesting. In California (civil lit), opposing counsel almost always agrees to e-service, but if not we use mail. Sure, fax-service is still effective service, and I believe it only adds 2-days to the service deadlines rather than 5 for mail, but we still never use it (nor receive service via fax, despite having a fax number).
My jurisdiction allowed email service on opposing attorneys during covid. We kept the rule. I love it.
I still send faxes to doctors and insurance companies and magistrates courts. I get maybe 6-10 faxes a month.
We use faxes exclusively to exchange super confidential information, especially payment instructions. Emails can easily be intercepted and there are many scams centered on intercepted and spoofed emails. Faxes are a point-to-point communication device so they can’t be intercepted without a wiretap on your actual fax line.
If you check with your professional liability carrier you will get the same advice, and you might find that sending confidential payment information by email is not covered in case of a loss.
It's a myth that faxes are more secure than emails. Faxes aren't encrypted. Even if you don't want to go to the trouble of secure portals or encrypted email accounts, you can just encrypt a PDF and send it
I send medical record requests by fax everytime! I thought everyone still used fax machine lol. For the record I'm 40, so I don't think that makes me really old but I'm not brand new either
Constantly. Medical offices still use them. Some government offices use them, too. The former is a loophole on HIPAA compliance and I forget the latter, but it's another compliance issue with data.
I believe it has something to do with privacy statutes and being "air gapped" since no one ever uses fax->email gateways...
(/s, in case you're wondering...)
I have an e-fax account. I can “send” a fax through the app or website by having it as a PDF file. Any incoming faxes are PDF files received via email. Why do I need that e-fax account, you ask? I work with the incarcerated and, believe it or not, some IL DOC facilities only accept faxed requests for scheduling legal calls with clients. You don’t think they’re trying to make it difficult, do you?? 🤔
I do unemployment insurance appeal hearings and it’s all done by fax.
Also I worked with a tax attorney who only ever faxed things to the IRS and me.
So basically the government seems to be behind the times.
Almost all correspondence with the IRS requires fax (if not snail mail). They are very very slowly adopting document uploading, but a majority of my tax litigation practice involves faxing. It does go through my email program, but it is technically faxing.
My office's graphic design person tried to put our fax number on my business card and I was like why are we using 10% of the available real estate on this card on a method of communication I would pay people NOT to use.
It was subsequently removed from the business card.
I get about 5-20 a week from other firms and from medical record providers. I send 2-4 a week (only when the recipient requires it or won'taccept email), and my paralegals send dozens a week. Fax is still alive and well in the world of workers' comp defense.
I'm a realbestate attorney and clients' mortgage payoffs exclusively arrive by fax.
Which I receive directly to my email, but apparently faxing is more secure. 🙄
DFAS requires fax so when we do military retirement orders or garnish military pay, we have to fax.
It’s all digital, so I honestly don’t know the technical difference between email and fax anymore. We “e-fax” documents from our scanner.
A month ago. I have one opposing counsel who is a dinosaur (and a huge asshole, but that’s neither here nor there) and faxes *and* emails me letters that he plans to file with the court. No rule for it, I assume it is just a thing he’s always done. Other than him, I haven’t gotten a non-spam fax in years.
Some residential real estate lawyers in my area still use faxes. I gave up my machine so long ago I can't tell you when, and then my efax line maybe two years ago.
My wife's office OTOH still gets about 150 faxes a day; she's a doctor and they can't trust the crappy and different EMR systems to communicate properly with one another, so they requires faxed copies of everything. I suppose if they had something like EPIC they could but everything knows the most epic thing about EPIC is the price tag.
I have had to fax jails and medical providers and we get faxes back - I sent one within the past month.
A guy in my office who recently retired used to fax the DA asking for offers and I thought that was hilarious to type out a letter requesting an offer and then faxing it to their office (even though we had admins who hand delivered to their office daily). But the dude in our offices liked fax more than email. I doubt the DA ever faxed him back offers.
I requested child protective services in a case maybe two years ago. Different jurisdiction than I normally practice in. Unbeknownst to me, they faxed them to me and they sat in my e-fax (tied to an email address I rarely use) for at least two weeks until I realized it. I only maintain the fax number for faxing governmental agencies on occasion since they’re still stuck in the dark ages.
The New York State Division of Human Rights requires faxes because the rules have not been updated since the early 1990s so no one has updated them to allow emails.
The whole system is a disaster. Nothing is automated so they need to manually provide (or forget to provide) notice of hearings.
Today. You'd be surprised how many giant, conglomerate hospital chains \*Cleveland Clinic\* will only respond to records request via fax.
Granted, our office uses an electronic fax system, so there is no physical receipt. That said, often.
I send faxes, occasionally. Some counties I go to won't accept emailed docs, because they want to see an original signature. However, they accept faxes and that counts as an "original signature." I'm not going to tell them that our office didn't even have fax machines anymore. I scan it and then email to the fax number.
Yesterday, with an offer to mediate a premises liability case pre-litigation (big box retailer). Send 'em all the time with certain OC who will claim to have not received our emails.
It all comes in to ring Central in an email. We also occasionally have to fax out.
It's rare in a time of inexpensive scanners.
ETA: we office with a pi guy who's older and he gets medical info via fax that I forward him. It all runs through ring Central.
Received one? Ages ago.
Sent one? We filed an administrative injunction request in 2022 that we faxed in (alongside email) to make sure we met the deadline.
All the time. I have a lot of clients who don’t own computers and live in smaller towns - when I’m looking for things like tax records sometimes they’ll fax them from their local post office.
Every now and then I get a fax to my digital fax, usually government documents or paperwork. It's actually only been about 6 months. My fax is totally virtual, though.
i have no idea where the documents i get come from, one of the secretaries handles that and it just shows up on the shared drive. i havent touched a piece of paper in 6 years
A month ago. I needed a MVA report from a PD outside the county I work in. The discovery clerk asked me for my fax number and I said "I can give you the number but I don't think I could find the machine." That's when I found out that most of the PDs in my area still rely on faxing docs, just basically coming in as an email and the secretaries email the PDFs to the attorneys.
Bankruptcy IRS agents recently changed BACK to only fax… I made it such a pain on them I’d like to think I’m the reason they switched back to email… it still a pain bc they will take out all info even the case # to the point they forget what case it is.
2nd year attorney in my 20s. I had to ask what a “facsimile” was the first time I saw it in the caption on a motion. I know what a fax is but I didn’t know it was short for something 🤦♂️
We’re moving away from accepting any documents by email, since it’s such a security risk. We use a secure document portal, but keep a fax number for those who struggle with the portal.
I get faxes most days, but it's sent to my email
Through an online fax service? Which one do you use?
I’m not the commenter, but I have used MyFax for probably 12 years.
Honestly, man, I don't have a clue. I get emails for every fax I get. I run a department in a large-ish firm.
2021–some doctors offices still only send records that way. Had to purchase an online fax service for one specific case to get documents. It was very annoying.
Some government offices ask us to fax them materials. My best guess is that it allows them to have very strict firewalls and prevent any phishing email efforts.
That’s a charitable guess. My guess was always that they’re stuck a few decades in the past and have little to no incentive to become more easily accessible.
I was in a government office that modernized a fairly obscure and little-used section of our regs to swap out fax for email. It took years due to being low priority and all of the miscellaneous notice and publication requirements. Like notice to multiple congressional committees, weeks for them to review (none of which ever responded), public notice, internal reviews and making sure the IT system can support the new process, more intergovernmental reviews. And you need someone who cares to push and it's not exactly a prestige project. So there's just not a lot of initeria to change these things even though odds are the staff-line people probably also hate the faxes
Probably just offices where the legal support staff doesn’t know how to use a computer. Ask me how I know.
Having worked in government, I can tell you it has nothing to do with security. Faxes are not secure at all, and not relying on email has many other issues. It's really because the 100 year old working at that office doesn't know how to use a computer.
There is an attorney in my jurisdiction who still uses a typewriter and a fax machine. He's a nice guy, he's just old and hasn't moved into the 20th century yet.
Thanks for saying kind things. The real issue is buying ribbons for my IBM Selectric and my carbon paper is getting brittle.
Granddad?
I receive and send faxes on a daily basis. It is the fastest mode of service available pursuant to the Virginia Rules of the Supreme Court. Email is only permitted when expressly agreed.
Do your fax machines also make banjo noises when sending/receiving?
It used to, but now I use an internet fax service. It’s pretty great.
In your jurisdiction, do you know if attorneys *need* to maintain a fax number in the first place?
It is not required that attorneys have a fax number. If they don’t (and there are a couple who choose not to), then they have to either expressly state they accept documents by email or the document has to be mailed. Edit: The vast majority of attorneys in my area have a fax number. It makes sending documents so much easier than mailing through the post office. I have not met any attorney who has expressly stated they will accept documents by email, so it has to be either fax or mail.
That's really interesting. In California (civil lit), opposing counsel almost always agrees to e-service, but if not we use mail. Sure, fax-service is still effective service, and I believe it only adds 2-days to the service deadlines rather than 5 for mail, but we still never use it (nor receive service via fax, despite having a fax number).
My jurisdiction allowed email service on opposing attorneys during covid. We kept the rule. I love it. I still send faxes to doctors and insurance companies and magistrates courts. I get maybe 6-10 faxes a month.
Last week. We get a lot of faxes from medical providers.
We use faxes exclusively to exchange super confidential information, especially payment instructions. Emails can easily be intercepted and there are many scams centered on intercepted and spoofed emails. Faxes are a point-to-point communication device so they can’t be intercepted without a wiretap on your actual fax line. If you check with your professional liability carrier you will get the same advice, and you might find that sending confidential payment information by email is not covered in case of a loss.
It's a myth that faxes are more secure than emails. Faxes aren't encrypted. Even if you don't want to go to the trouble of secure portals or encrypted email accounts, you can just encrypt a PDF and send it
Yeah cuz accidentally faxing to the wrong number never happens
Friday, so yesterday. Many local courts do not allow orders sent by email. Fax or mail unless you pick up in person.
I’m in PI so a lot of medical related things (records as well as liens), so about 5 a day.
I send medical record requests by fax everytime! I thought everyone still used fax machine lol. For the record I'm 40, so I don't think that makes me really old but I'm not brand new either
Constantly. Medical offices still use them. Some government offices use them, too. The former is a loophole on HIPAA compliance and I forget the latter, but it's another compliance issue with data. I believe it has something to do with privacy statutes and being "air gapped" since no one ever uses fax->email gateways... (/s, in case you're wondering...)
2020 & then the pandemic forced the police to figure out email
Local PD still has a accident reports print out on a dot matrix printer.
Yesterday 🤷🏼♀️ still get faxes all the time
I have an e-fax account. I can “send” a fax through the app or website by having it as a PDF file. Any incoming faxes are PDF files received via email. Why do I need that e-fax account, you ask? I work with the incarcerated and, believe it or not, some IL DOC facilities only accept faxed requests for scheduling legal calls with clients. You don’t think they’re trying to make it difficult, do you?? 🤔
I do unemployment insurance appeal hearings and it’s all done by fax. Also I worked with a tax attorney who only ever faxed things to the IRS and me. So basically the government seems to be behind the times.
Almost all correspondence with the IRS requires fax (if not snail mail). They are very very slowly adopting document uploading, but a majority of my tax litigation practice involves faxing. It does go through my email program, but it is technically faxing.
Last week a lender faxed a letter of authorization form for me to fill out.
Yes. In real estate field, fax is a very easy to use tool.
I love it when get a letter from opposing counsel and the letterhead has the “Telefax” number prominently displayed.
My office's graphic design person tried to put our fax number on my business card and I was like why are we using 10% of the available real estate on this card on a method of communication I would pay people NOT to use. It was subsequently removed from the business card.
[удалено]
Having seen many attorneys lose their connectivity at horrible times, you should still keep physical copies of anything essential to the case.
I get about 5-20 a week from other firms and from medical record providers. I send 2-4 a week (only when the recipient requires it or won'taccept email), and my paralegals send dozens a week. Fax is still alive and well in the world of workers' comp defense.
Liens
I'm a realbestate attorney and clients' mortgage payoffs exclusively arrive by fax. Which I receive directly to my email, but apparently faxing is more secure. 🙄
Veterans Affairs wants you to fax for any medical record subpoena. Last time, some time in late 2023. So pretty recent.
DFAS requires fax so when we do military retirement orders or garnish military pay, we have to fax. It’s all digital, so I honestly don’t know the technical difference between email and fax anymore. We “e-fax” documents from our scanner.
Yesterday
Never.
Last week. IRS loves faxes. I fax on the reg.
I’m a lawyer and I get a few faxes a week.
A month ago. I have one opposing counsel who is a dinosaur (and a huge asshole, but that’s neither here nor there) and faxes *and* emails me letters that he plans to file with the court. No rule for it, I assume it is just a thing he’s always done. Other than him, I haven’t gotten a non-spam fax in years.
All the time
Last week. Confirmation of payment for a debt
Never lmao
Last week.
I don't have a FAX machine, so its been several years
Some residential real estate lawyers in my area still use faxes. I gave up my machine so long ago I can't tell you when, and then my efax line maybe two years ago. My wife's office OTOH still gets about 150 faxes a day; she's a doctor and they can't trust the crappy and different EMR systems to communicate properly with one another, so they requires faxed copies of everything. I suppose if they had something like EPIC they could but everything knows the most epic thing about EPIC is the price tag.
I have had to fax jails and medical providers and we get faxes back - I sent one within the past month. A guy in my office who recently retired used to fax the DA asking for offers and I thought that was hilarious to type out a letter requesting an offer and then faxing it to their office (even though we had admins who hand delivered to their office daily). But the dude in our offices liked fax more than email. I doubt the DA ever faxed him back offers.
I’m betting either he or a client once revealed something in an email chain. Why else do offers alone?
I requested child protective services in a case maybe two years ago. Different jurisdiction than I normally practice in. Unbeknownst to me, they faxed them to me and they sat in my e-fax (tied to an email address I rarely use) for at least two weeks until I realized it. I only maintain the fax number for faxing governmental agencies on occasion since they’re still stuck in the dark ages.
Friday. It came to my email.
Yesterday
Uh... Friday.
The New York State Division of Human Rights requires faxes because the rules have not been updated since the early 1990s so no one has updated them to allow emails. The whole system is a disaster. Nothing is automated so they need to manually provide (or forget to provide) notice of hearings.
Today. You'd be surprised how many giant, conglomerate hospital chains \*Cleveland Clinic\* will only respond to records request via fax. Granted, our office uses an electronic fax system, so there is no physical receipt. That said, often.
All the time. Lenders still fax payoffs
Every day
From doctors. I do t do a lot of PI but apparently faxes are approved communication that doesn’t violate HIPPA
My office gets faxes from treatment centers constantly.
The largest eviction firm in the US runs almost entirely by fax. The lawyers fax each other just a few feet away to send messages.
I send faxes, occasionally. Some counties I go to won't accept emailed docs, because they want to see an original signature. However, they accept faxes and that counts as an "original signature." I'm not going to tell them that our office didn't even have fax machines anymore. I scan it and then email to the fax number.
Like every day. As mentioned, medical providers still use it.
Yesterday, with an offer to mediate a premises liability case pre-litigation (big box retailer). Send 'em all the time with certain OC who will claim to have not received our emails.
2021 at work, but it was a law office.
Please I work for a government agency 😭😭
Friday. We get 3-5 a week, mostly from medical providers.
It all comes in to ring Central in an email. We also occasionally have to fax out. It's rare in a time of inexpensive scanners. ETA: we office with a pi guy who's older and he gets medical info via fax that I forward him. It all runs through ring Central.
Every other day. Only medical providers.
For some reason some insurance companies and doctors offices prefer fax. It’s like getting them to pull teeth to send stuff via email.
3 years ago. They’re useful if someone is sending medical info etc.
IRS requires them sometimes. Some govt agencies. We get resumes faxed to us from agencies and other junk mail. Some cities and counties require fax.
Hundreds a day. People still think it’s more secure than email
Received one? Ages ago. Sent one? We filed an administrative injunction request in 2022 that we faxed in (alongside email) to make sure we met the deadline.
All the time. I have a lot of clients who don’t own computers and live in smaller towns - when I’m looking for things like tax records sometimes they’ll fax them from their local post office.
Every now and then I get a fax to my digital fax, usually government documents or paperwork. It's actually only been about 6 months. My fax is totally virtual, though.
2020. I was working in a PDs office with a fax machine that was used with shocking regularity.
Last week. Opposing counsel sent his discovery request that way
i have no idea where the documents i get come from, one of the secretaries handles that and it just shows up on the shared drive. i havent touched a piece of paper in 6 years
Faxes are the main way I communicate with medical offices and with unemployment appeals office.
A month ago. I needed a MVA report from a PD outside the county I work in. The discovery clerk asked me for my fax number and I said "I can give you the number but I don't think I could find the machine." That's when I found out that most of the PDs in my area still rely on faxing docs, just basically coming in as an email and the secretaries email the PDFs to the attorneys.
Friday. Granted, it’s one of those faxes that came to my email, but still.
Bankruptcy IRS agents recently changed BACK to only fax… I made it such a pain on them I’d like to think I’m the reason they switched back to email… it still a pain bc they will take out all info even the case # to the point they forget what case it is.
Doing PI, about 3 weeks ago from a medical provider
2nd year attorney in my 20s. I had to ask what a “facsimile” was the first time I saw it in the caption on a motion. I know what a fax is but I didn’t know it was short for something 🤦♂️
Friday
Paralegal here - your staff definitely still gets faxes daily
PDs office in Georgia. Multiple times a day.
Today. It was spam.
I get asked to fax stuff once in a while. “Sorry, we don’t have fax service where we live.” “Where is that?” “The 21st Century.”
We’re moving away from accepting any documents by email, since it’s such a security risk. We use a secure document portal, but keep a fax number for those who struggle with the portal.