For many legal businesses, automation may feel like a harder-said-than-done legal practice automation proposition. However, a substantial number of repetitive, rule-based activities are ideal for automatization, freeing up attorney time to concentrate on client-facing tasks and strategic initiatives that generate revenue.
Legal practice automation offers a variety of benefits. It lets attorneys concentrate on what they’re trained to do, enhances customer service and reduces chance of human error. What might not be as obvious is the cost savings that are achievable.
In a world with the high cost of staffing and other costs, automating a process can result in you not having to employ more legal team members. This can allow small or solo businesses to remain competitive and have the same budget as larger companies.
A good example is document automation. Legal teams can design templates for regular documents like NDAs, employment paperwork or privacy compliance documents. Instead of spending a lot of time in meetings, or emailing documents back and forth, they can create and save templates. Once a template is established, the team can self-serve to produce the document, without the need for legal assistance. This results in faster processing times for clients, and less rework on the part of legal teams.
Automating a workflow can provide legal professionals with the tools they need to be successful as well as increase efficiency. If you’re not sure how to begin, consider keeping a log of your daily tasks for the week and identify any tasks that would be suitable for automation. From there, research technology tools that may help alleviate the burden of these tasks. Implement them slowly so as not to interfere with your work routine.