Automating Legal Documents: How It Can Benefit Your Firm
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Creating legal documents from scratch can be hugely time consuming; but, what if there was a way to create legal documents at the click of a button to help save time for your fee earners? Fortunately, legal document automation is something that can be performed by all business models within the legal service industry. Automated document assembly can have a number of benefits for law firms, including improved efficiency, productivity and profitability.
It is important to understand the ways in which legal documentation can be automated, as well as the best methods of performing legal document automation in order to reap the main benefits of a document automation solution.
How to perform legal document automation
Having the right case management tools in place is essential for effective document management and automatic creation of documents.
We would recommend using a case management system such as Proclaim as this system is one of the best practice management software tools which can be easily and seamlessly developed to allow for legal document automation within the system.
With the right development, your Proclaim, or other case management system, can be set up to allow for automated document creation. Automated templates can be configured within the system, and using workflow automation, these document templates can be produced at specific points within a legal case.
Moreover, your case management system could be integrated with electronic signature software to allow clients to easily sign automated documents that have been sent to them.
The benefits of automating legal documents
There are many benefits to using document automation tools for all types of law firms. Some of the main benefits of using legal document automation include:
- Reduced risk of human error
- Improved standardisation and consistency
- Improved efficiency
- Reduced costs
- Increased profits
- Fee earners can focus on more complex, higher value tasks
- Improved client relationships
The role of a legal fee earner involves carrying out a number of tedious and time consuming tasks, such as planning and drafting legal documents, as well as sending those documents to clients and third parties to the case.
Automation software could be key to cutting down a large proportion of these time consuming, manual document processing tasks. The adoption of software that acts as robotic process automation (RPA) is essential to increasing profits and improving productivity.
A 2015 report from the international management consulting outfit McKinsey & Co identified that significant amounts of the legal profession could be automated. They estimated that approximately 69% of time could be automated for paralegals and 23% of time could be automated for solicitors. (This percentage is likely to have increased seven years later.)
Automating legal documents does not mean that you will be required to remove a percentage of your workforce. It simply means that the tedious, administrative, robotic tasks that your fee earners currently perform can be eliminated and they will be able to spend more of their time focusing on the more complex issues and consequently resolve more cases much more promptly.
When should legal document automation be used?
Running a legal case can be complex and many types of documents are created and used, such as contracts, conditional fee agreements, instructions to third parties, such as medical experts, and letters updating clients on their cases. The automatic production of hyperlinked, indexed and paginated court bundles is also possible using legal document automation.
Automating legal documents can be used in a number of circumstances, such as:
- When using well established documents on a repetitive basis
- When it is time consuming or tedious to complete the documents manually
- During repetitive processes when the same information is required within the documents and documents are not bespoke
- When documents or processes are high risk or sensitive and the risk of human error needs to be eliminated
When should legal documents not be automated?
Of course, there will be circumstances when legal document automation is not appropriate within a case. These circumstances may include:
- When creating documents for bespoke matters which are done on an ad hoc basis
- When creating documents for a non-repeatable or unique task
- When creating documents for new areas of practice, before documents and processes have been established
- When creating documents for matters with regularly changing requirements
What else can be automated?
The drafting and production of legal documents is not the only process that can be automated for a law firm. Law firm staff spend a lot of time conducting other administrative tasks that could easily be automated.
Some of the tasks which can be automated for fee earners include, but are not limited to;
- Keeping clients updated on their case
- Billing
- Requesting e-signatures on documents
- Requesting further information or documentation from clients
- Sending key information to third parties at specific points throughout a case
- Risk assessing
- MI reporting
Proclaim for automating legal documents
Proclaim Case Management Software is the leading software used by Solicitors in all legal markets. They offer a cloud based solution which is particularly useful for accessing important information on cases when working remotely.
The most beneficial feature of Proclaim is that it is extremely flexible and can be developed in many ways. Proclaim can be developed to allow for process automation, which can be particularly beneficial for solicitors due to the number of steps that are needed to be taken on each case.
Automation is possible for many manual tasks within all cases using Proclaim Software, including automating legal documents. Automation within Proclaim will assist in saving time for file handlers and allowing them to focus on other, larger tasks at hand.
The system can also be developed to allow for automated client updates throughout the legal process. This will improve customer satisfaction and save file handlers the time of having to manually update each client.
With the right setup, you can ensure that all key reports are scheduled to run automatically and to be disclosed to predefined contacts or locations at specified times. Thus ensuring you are never missing the information you need to make key business decisions.
How Can Legal Practice Support Assist?
Legal Practice Support understand the benefits that automating legal documents, as well as other processes, can bring to a firm. We can help you improve the productivity and efficiency of your law firm by developing and optimising your case management system to allow for the automation of specific tasks.
We can help your team to eliminate the tedious, administrative, robotic tasks that they may currently spend a lot of their time performing. This means that they can spend more of their time focusing on the more complex issues and settle matters more swiftly.
If you would like to discuss how a developer from the LPS team could assist your law firm, please contact us for further information. We can be contacted via e-mail at enquiries@legalpracticesupport.co.uk, or get in touch with us via Live Chat or the contact form, below.
Reviews
Satisfied client stories
"Since we first began utilising the services of Legal Practice Support, we have seen a dramatic improvement in the capabilities of our Proclaim system. The system has seen substantial enhancements with regards to automation; tasks that previously could take staff hours, can now be completed within minutes."
"Prior to their (Legal Practice Support) involvement, we had little to no reporting; and what we did have was generally manually accumulated data on spreadsheets. Since Legal Practice Support began enhancing our system, they have enabled us to receive key management information as and when required, which allows us to evaluate key areas of the business, as well as provide overviews of fee earners' case progression and their performance amongst other things."
" We have had the out of the box Proclaim system for many years, and whilst we were content with its performance, it wasn't until we utilised the services of Legal Practice Support to help streamline and automate our workflows that we really saw its potential to save time and money by maximising the efficiency of our workflows."
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