Digital transformation has reached all market segments and business sectors. Among them, the document automation for lawyers makes the daily lives of professionals easier. This applies to both freelancers and law firms, and even the legal departments of large corporations that use online documents.
The volume of legal documents required for contract signing and even for procedural monitoring demands a great deal of organization from this segment. Furthermore, printing this material is a cost that impacts management, as are the secondary procedures involved in physically submitting the documentation.
Today, the United States legal system is accelerating its digital transformation, and it’s now possible to manage cases digitally with greater autonomy and precision. In this article, virtual assistant for lawyers explain everything about legal document automation. Let’s dive in!
After all, what does document automation for lawyers mean?
Also known as digitization, process automation is one of the key areas of digital transformation. It allows a company’s production routines to be less manual and operational, allowing employees’ skills to be better directed toward more strategic activities, wasting less time on minor bureaucracy.
In the case of legal document automation, digitization is developed with a focus on the tasks and steps involved in specific procedures in the area. Thus, it addresses key bottlenecks in a manual routine and makes these organizational flows more fluid.
It’s common for people to view legal activities as bureaucratic, and indeed, they are. After all, there are legal standards that must be met for documents to have due validity and credibility.
However, legal automation, through the programming of these standards, allows documents to meet legal requirements with less human intervention. This allows lawyers and other professionals to dedicate more effort to the actual thesis of cases rather than wasting time on operational routines. They also have the assurance that all compliance requirements are being met for each case.
What does legal document automation look like?
In addition to meeting legal standardization requirements, legal document automation within your company must consider its specific characteristics.
Among these, the size of the business, the volume of documents handled, and the way internal procedures and processes operate within the company directly influence how digitization will be implemented.
For legal automation to be developed at high performance, it is necessary to map the daily pain points of the professionals responsible for the tasks and how they believe this can be improved.
It’s important to keep in mind that the entire American legal system is undergoing digitalization. Therefore, new possibilities may become available to facilitate the day-to-day work of the profession.
Therefore, scalability only becomes a business reality when managers hire tools that allow integration with other legal solutions or even a CLM system for managing the contract lifecycle.
What are the advantages of legal document automation?
To invest in any solution, you need to understand the value it can generate for your business. In the case of legal automation, there are a number of benefits that encompass both the direct financial performance of the department or firm and the consolidation of client perception.
When we think about legal careers, the image professionals project to the market is a key decision-making criterion for many who need to hire legal services. The same logic also applies to those who need to sign service contracts between companies; the image a company conveys when using cutting-edge technology to sign documents can be decisive in closing deals.
Below, we list some of the main possible advantages of automating legal documents.
Cost reduction
Every business must have a strategic approach that manages its costs and has an action plan to reduce them without compromising the quality of its products and/or services. This is a challenge that can be overcome through investment in digital transformation.
Automating legal documents has a positive impact on cost management, both directly and indirectly. Besides being a sustainable initiative, reducing the volume of printed documents helps reduce and/or eliminate expenses related to:
- Sheets;
- Printing inks;
- Transportation of documents.
- Document storage
- Query stored documents
More productivity
Being digital brings the idea of immediacy. Legal automation reduces the time between sending documents, receiving them, and processing them. In situations that require the intervention of government agencies, online submission significantly optimizes the time taken to complete the legal process.
Furthermore, clauses can be automatically generated according to the template and business rules already pre-determined in the platform. This means that standard contract generation can be almost 100% automated.
Another important aspect is that performing operational routines manually increases the incidence of errors. This impacts costs and results in a loss of efficiency in the solution, which may not be well received by your client, right?
Professionalism
These days, it’s almost impossible to meet people who don’t have access to some form of technology. Artificial intelligence and workflow automation are topics discussed daily, especially on social media.
Providing your clients with a digital legal experience will strengthen their positive perception of professionalism and eliminate a host of bureaucratic red tape, giving your team more time to focus on what’s truly essential.
Of course, we’re talking about those bureaucratic tasks that make any customer uncomfortable. These should be automated with a focus on improving the experience.
Customer satisfaction
Like any other business model, law firms take steps to attract new clients. In this segment, referrals from other clients, known as “word of mouth,” are one of the main ways to attract new cases.
With the speed and quality that legal document automation provides, the client’s experience with your services is likely to be positive. This will help them become their first choice when they need you again. The same goes for when an acquaintance or relative asks if they know a lawyer they can recommend.
What is the best platform for lawyers’ daily routines?
The best platform for automating legal documents is one that specializes in the segment and meets the quality, security, and support requirements your business needs.
CLM in the Legal Department
Contract Lifecycle Management, or Contract Lifecycle Management, is an information technology tool that uses artificial intelligence to manage contracts end-to-end.
When it comes to digitizing the Legal Department, this feature is essential, as it automates the creation of legal documents. Interesting, isn’t it?
Now, to better understand how a CLM brings value to your legal operation, download our “CLM Guide for Legal Teams.”