Most would acknowledge there are significant problems with the way legal work is done currently.

• It takes too long
• It costs too much
• There is a lot of duplication of effort, copy and paste and re-work
• Too much time is spent on urgent low-value work, and not enough on high-value work
• Many lawyers are over-worked, stressed, and don't enjoy the mix of work they do
• Little data is captured when creating contracts, limiting opportunities for contract management and better decision making
• Many people who need legal advice can't afford it, or choose not to get it

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed other issues, including:

• Over-dependence on a few key people, who may not always be available
• Difficulty in accessing essential resources when working remotely
• Challenges in collaborating with clients and other parties when physical meetings aren't possible
• A renewed and more urgent need to do more for less

Every legal process can be improved, and now more than ever, every law firm or legal team leader should be searching for those improvements. If not for their own profits, then to benefit their people and their clients.

Technology is key to unlocking opportunities to address these issues. It won't fix the problems by itself, but without using new technology where possible, improvements are likely to be marginal.

Document automation technology is well proven over 30 years. Its availability and ease of use has increased substantially in recent years, and it is one of the easiest technologies to start using now for immediate, meaningful, benefit.

Document automation projects are not just about documents. Just as documents are at the core of many legal processes, document automation is key to unlocking opportunities for other legal technologies and process improvements. 

For example:

• You can access automated documents from SharePoint, other intranets, other software solutions or external websites, supporting remote working and collaboration
• Document automation can incorporate or link to training materials and organisation policies
• It's easier to share a screen with a client to go through a document automation questionnaire than a full document
• By capturing contract information as structured data through a document automation questionnaire, you have much of what you will need for a contracts database without an expensive AI document review tool
• You can use the data from the automation questionnaire for broader workflow automation, such as managing approval processes, or you could user business intelligence tools such as Power BI to turn that data into beautiful graphs/reports.
• Document automation can create the "smart tags" that are needed to make digital signing easy, with each signing block being pre-tagged from the point of document creation

• Document drafting is 75% or more faster
• You can delegate to lower-cost people, who can work faster and to higher standards
• You'll need fewer people to do the work
• Turnaround times will decrease

• Quality will improve
• Your clients will be happier
• Profits will increase per job, and you'll be able to get and do more work

• We'll take some time to understand your situation and what you need. Usually, this will involve a review of your documents and related processes
• Most likely we'll show you examples of similar solutions we can use as a base. We may be able to give you a free trial of something we already have, or a low-cost proof of concept if we have to build something.
• We'll prepare a detailed proposed scope of work that we can refine with you, setting out what can be delivered, when and how, and estimates of expected benefits to assist in any business approval processes. Usually, we can fix our fees in advance (see below).
• We'll factor in the training and initial help you'll need to get going, plus ongoing support that you'll need.
• We'll also identify what support will be needed from you to ensure a successful project. We'll need your help to determine the potential obstacles, and how we can overcome them, and to understand how your people work

• Once we get going, we'll prepare a solution for testing. We'll let you know if we need any help.
• You can test and provide feedback. We'll do our best to incorporate changes immediately, so you're always testing the up-to-date solution. Because we have a good understanding of what the end documents should look like from a legal and end user perspective, the bulk of the feedback we receive is to tweak the automation to suit the personal preference of the users, rather than picking up major errors
• We get paid once the solution has passed acceptance. If we don't deliver, we don't get paid!
• As we provide a managed service, we'll provide ongoing support as required. We want this to be a solution you get value from on an ongoing basis

• Before we can discuss a price, we need to understand the problems that need to be solved, how that will be best be done, and the roles that each of us will play in doing that
• Our prices can then be pre-agreed and fixed in advance, based on a detailed scope.
• We can use a substantial body of existing IP that we can customise to your needs. This will keep your up-front costs down and delivery times short.

• You'll only pay anything if we deliver what we agreed.
• You'll pay for ongoing use and support on an agreed basis. If you aren't getting the benefits you need, you can stop your costs by cancelling.