What does innovation mean to you?
Many people think of it as a light bulb moment: someone having a radical, game-changing idea no one else has thought of before. But more often than not, innovation involves a shift in thinking, a reappraisal of traditional norms to find better ways of doing things. It’s usually about making people’s lives easier or their jobs more productive, typically by reducing labour-intensive processes so their time can be spent on other things – newer ways of working or bigger ideas. And these days, that means digitalisation and, increasingly, automation.
Automation is now a part of most people’s everyday experience, whether that’s asking Alexa, Siri or Google to create a shopping list; email systems that suggest quick-fire replies based on the content of an incoming message; or robots that mow your lawn or vacuum your floor without you having to lift a finger. Technology is revolutionising previously manual tasks, taking the effort out and creating space for other, more valuable activities.
When it comes to law firm processes, minimising labour-intensive tasks could have many advantages: not least increasing competitiveness, boosting profitability and reducing risk. And it can take many forms. The possibilities are potentially endless, but the most obvious are:
- Automating document creation. The reality is that many contracts, agreements, formal letters and so on contain lots of similarities in form and structure and therefore do not always need to be crafted bespoke from scratch each time. Specialist document automation software can provide templates that can be filled in using a simple questionnaire and/or allow for critical data to be auto-extracted from the firm’s other software systems such as practice or matter management solutions, to populate new documents in a dynamic way. So it’s possible to create individual documents or even whole suites of related files in no time, with no need to repeat all the data entry again the next time you need something similar. Even complex documents can be built this way, with fundamental information being added automatically, and lawyers then using their skills to analyse, adapt and add to the content as required.
- Smart contract review. Reviewing contracts is time-consuming and when large volumes are involved, it can feel overwhelming. More and more law firms are using tools that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning that has been designed for just this purpose and ‘trained’ by legal experts to do a substantial share of the legwork. These tools can search documents for key information that may be stored in disparate or unexpected places, highlight specific terms and clauses, flag up important dates and help clarify ambiguities in different parts of the text. By surfacing this information quickly and easily, lawyers will have greater bandwidth to focus their attention in the right places, for thorough audit and analysis.
- Streamlined workflows. Solutions that can streamline workflows, automating as much and as many of the processes as possible throughout a project lifecycle are increasingly being seen as a critical tool. Especially so, in light of the constant push to create efficiency gains while improving matter management and delivering excellent outcomes for clients. By using platforms that give lawyers and clients real-time visibility over matter status, that prompt the relevant people to take action in the next stage of the process and that automatically alert people to important deadlines, workflows become far more seamless. If those solutions also embed or integrate with information-sharing and collaboration capabilities and even incorporate document automation and contract review functionality, even more time can be saved and you can rest assured that nothing will fall through the gaps.
It’s important to remember that automation in no way eliminates the need for legal expertise in any of these processes. Rather, it gives lawyers confidence that the basics are taken care of, empowering them to put their skills and experience to best use in the areas where they are most needed, and where they add greatest value to clients. It also gives them assurance that the risk of human error inherent in manual tasks is mitigated – processes are consistent, with compliance designed in, ready for lawyers’ expert oversight to be overlaid on top.
Adopting these kinds of technologies requires support and buy-in from staff, and it can seem a daunting prospect at first. But just as a keen gardener will quickly come to see how using a robot lawnmower leaves them free to focus on weeding or planting, so lawyers should soon start to see the benefits of automated legal processes. Users report that using a document automation solution can cut the time spent on drafting documents by up to 82% – that’s a statistic worth taking seriously. Once they see the power for themselves, lawyers may even start to come up with new ideas on how to use these kinds of technologies in more ways.
Given that clients will be getting their work done more smoothly in less time, they will soon be impressed too. And as the Thomson Reuters State of the UK Legal Market 2022 report points out: “When clients rate…their external law firms a 9 or 10 out of 10 for efficiency in connection with the legal work done, both client satisfaction and clients’ likelihood to recommend the firm to others are almost 20% higher.”
The future is here, and it pays to be prepared. It’s clear that innovating in this manner can help dramatically improve firms’ bottom line, enhance client (and lawyer) satisfaction and reduce risk. Making process changes in the short term should lead to long-term success.
Why keep on doing things the hard way?
