The Essential Guide to Legal Document Automation
Legal professionals know that lawyering often involves tedious paperwork. That’s where document automation (also known as document assembly) comes in. Document automation allows you to automate document creation with the help of intelligent templates. In the legal sector, it provides a centralized process of producing letters, agreements, motions, pleading, bills, invoices, and other legal documents. In general, document automation helps in creating a high volume of documents in a short period of time while being compliant and maintaining a consistent brand.
Legal document automation is essential for improving and optimizing the way lawyers run their practice. On the other hand, document management ensures that the document is easily accessible, well organized, and secured for future access, edits, and sharing.
What are the types of document automation and management systems?
There are many different document automation and management systems available in the market. There are two main types of software when it comes to document automation for lawyers: standalone document automation software and legal practice management software with built-in document automation and management software.
Legal practice management software with built-in document automation and management features
When choosing the right legal practice management software for your firm, it’s important to consider how it will incorporate your automated documents and management tools. Ideally, lawyers need to be able to easily originate, edit, and share documents from one location, like Clio Manage. This means having a “one-stop-shop” for all your document automation and management needs. For routine tasks like document creation and document assembly, the last thing you want to do is have to waste time switching between different software.
Standalone, third-party document software
For example, there are many standalone software available that lets you merge letters using prompts to input the information as you go. One issue with this is it doesn’t allow you to pull information from a database where the data is already stored.
Other examples include pulling information from a Microsoft Word document or Excel file, but this can be extremely complicated to set up and managing matters within excel sheets is not ideal. By storing documents in a standalone, third-party document management software, you cannot tag and easily associate those documents, letters, or forms with the matter that they belong to.
How to choose the right document automation software for your law firm
Determine your needs
There are five things to keep in mind if you’re a lawyer looking for the right software, for automating your firm’s document creation and management:
1. Budget
An important consideration with any decision is cost. When deciding on software, keep in mind the other benefits that should be included with the cost. Is the software bundled with any other features? For example, is the document automation management software coupled with a document management system? You’ll save on cost by pursuing a system that incorporates different features.
2. The cost of switching to the new software
The cost of switching to the new software is the overall amount of time spent switching between different software or applications. If the document assembly software you’re considering doesn’t integrate directly with your document management system or your legal practice management software, then you might lose time changing back and forth from each application.
3. Time and effort involved with the setup
Time is money, and lawyers understand this sentiment better than most. That’s why lawyers need to select a document automation system that is easy and intuitive to set up and saves time in the future..
Consider the following questions as you explore different software for document management for lawyers at your firm:
- How much time are you willing to commit to setting up the document automation or assembly software?
- How much do you have to be involved in this process?
- Will you need to hire someone to set this up for you, or can you or someone in your office handle this?
- If you need to hire someone, what will that additional cost be?
- How complex of a system do you need and how complex of a system can you have?
4. How the document management system fits with your existing workflow
Lawyers with existing applications, operational processes, tasks, deadlines, and procedures in place need to examine how well a particular document automation software will mesh with their existing workflow. Software that fits well with your existing setup is necessary to keep your practice running smoothly.
5. Security
When using cloud-based software, all the data will be hosted on a third-party server. As legal professionals, there’s an ethical obligation to thoroughly vet the service providers so that the information doesn’t reach the wrong hands. Along with understanding who is responsible for hosting and storing your data, it’s imperative to understand how they will be handling your data, who will have access to the data, how robust their servers are, their backup procedures, and so on.
Core features of good document automation and document management software for law firms
Finding the right document automation software for lawyers can help you grow your firm—by streamlining the process of originating many different kinds of letters, forms, and other legal documents for different practice areas. Some core deciding features of a good legal document automation software should include the following:
Lets you prepare common/routine legal documents in seconds
This is an often-overlooked requirement of any good document automation software: The ability to quickly merge and populate a letter or form and export that information into a PDF or Word document within seconds. Ideally, even the most complex documents would take far less time with document automation software.
Find files quickly
Attorneys need to be able to search for documents with ease and speed—this is a must-have feature of any software meant for lawyers. Apart from searching folders and titles, a good document management system should be able to search text within the documents themselves. It should also be able to find text or phrases within any PDF or Word document quickly and easily.
Lets you use electronic signatures
Connecting and communicating with clients remotely is becoming the norm. Collecting signatures without needing to send physical documents or being in the same room as the client is essential. A key feature of any good document management software is the ability to quickly and easily send out newly created documents for signature collection using a cloud-based platform.
Lets you access your documents remotely
Oftentimes, lawyers need to access their documents remotely and at any time. If your legal documents are stored on your computer at the office, or on local servers within your firm, it can be very difficult—or impossible—to access these files remotely. Finding a cloud-based software that allows you to access your documents remotely while at your home office or in court is an exceedingly important feature of any system.
Sync, share, and track documents easily
Lawyers should be able to easily send legal documents and track their use securely. A feature that every tool should include is the ability to share legal letters and forms with clients and co-counsel, and sync any changes made along the way.
Be Secure
A good cloud-based legal document automation and management software should have great security so that it’s difficult to hack the system and strict data policy so there’s no inappropriate handling of data.
Now, let’s talk about the different tools available for lawyers and law firms.
Document automation tools
Standalone document assembly tools such as Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Law Cloud have their strengths and weaknesses. These systems share the benefit of automating legal letters on a granular level. One example includes customizing pronouns when referring to a male or female client. However, this hyper-detailed amount of customization can become a hindrance to the setup and usage process as it can get very complicated.
Did you know there’s an easy way to convert Microsoft Word documents into reusable and fillable templates? Clio Draft is an easy-to-use, cloud-based document automation software is compatible with both Windows and Mac devices. You can save time and avoid errors by only typing client and matter information once. Clio Draft allows you to create and populate sets of documents simultaneously to cut drafting time for projects from hours to minutes. You can also use conditional logic to solve for tedious tasks like updating pronouns, or to add/remove clauses in documents based on client information. Plus, you can easily send, receive, and track documents requiring e-signature!
Document management systems
Due to their popularity and widespread use among legal professionals, document management systems such as Google Drive, OneDrive, and Netdocs integrate with many other systems. When paired with third-party programs, they can provide a host of additional features as an extension of their software. This makes them much more powerful as a document management system than if they were to remain a standalone product.
However, many of these programs operate by charging for the amount of space you use. This can become expensive for lawyers with a lot of documents and files. Furthermore, when a standalone software is just linked to a third-party program, you can lose the ability to tag and easily associate documents and files with the matter of their origin.
E-filing tools
Tools like InfoTrack, NextChapter, and Alt Legal can help simplify the e-filing process for lawyers. When integrated with document automation and management systems, these applications can expedite the court filing process by easily sending and receiving documents from one place. The drawbacks to these applications are the added cost to your existing legal practice management or document management budget.
Practice management tools
Clio Grow is a client intake-oriented legal practice management software that helps lawyers track, organize, and manage clients. Coupled with Clio Manage, the companion software that handles the case as it moves to a matter or litigation, this suite effortlessly handles the life of a case from cradle to grave while offering an abundance of industry-leading features.
What is the best legal document automation software for law firms?
Ideally, the best software for law firms for document automation and management should include the core features mentioned before. It should be able to store an unlimited amount of legal documents, find files quickly, let you use electronic signatures, access your documents remotely, file documents directly from the source, capture billable time from any document, sync, share and track documents easily and be secure.
By reading this article you now know there is a solution to break the copy/paste and manual edit process of document creation and should have a detailed list of features to include in your search for the best solution. Consider taking a closer look at how Clio Draft helps solo, small and mid-size law firms save time, avoid errors and increase profitability with intelligent document automation. Clio Draft has helped thousands of firms create more than a million documents. If you’re ready, find out more about our intelligent document platform and request access today.
Implement the right legal document automation software for a more efficient law firm
This may seem like a routine task. But lawyers looking to improve their practice need to consider the importance of automated legal documents. By implementing the right software, lawyers can automate and significantly save time in document creation and management. In addition to this, utilizing legal document formats and legal document templates can support efficiency and automation.
When choosing the best document automation software should offer the core suite of features mentioned above. When choosing the best document automation software for your law firm, consider how it integrates with your legal workflows. From document automation tools and document management systems to workflow automation and e-filing tools, your chosen software should make running your firm easier for different practice areas, by being a “one-stop-shop” for all your document automation, management, and legal practice management needs.
Note: The information in this article applies only to US practices. This post is provided for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, business, or accounting advice.
Originally published by Clio ( Document Automation for Lawyers: A Complete Reference (clio.com) )
Clio published this blog post in October 2020. Last updated: March 23, 2023.
