Document Automation: The easiest way to save up to 82% of your time

It’s a common plight for many lawyers – there is never enough time. And no matter how many hours you put in, there seems to be an ever-increasing number of important tasks all vying for your undivided attention – from the endless list of yet-to-be-drafted legal documents to the many still-to-be-returned client calls. You are constantly being pulled in different directions, and you likely leave the office feeling as if your to-do list is longer than when the day started.

While this may sound extreme, the stark reality is that lawyers are under increasing pressure to produce more in less time. Today’s clients are more demanding and less willing to wait. They expect speed and efficiency from their lawyers – and if you can’t deliver, they may go to someone else.

Given these increased demands, it is essential to find creative solutions that can help save time and eliminate pain points – solutions like document automation.

You already did the work – now leverage it to save time on new cases

The document automation process is straightforward and simple. Document automation software uses your firm’s existing legal documents – such as contracts, licenses, leases, purchase agreements, wills, trusts, etc. – to create automated templates for future use.

Once templates are created, you need only answer a simple questionnaire, and your document automation software instantly creates new legal documents that are customized for your client.

When it comes to creating drafts of legal documents, document automation can save you a significant amount of time. Lawyers have reported up to 82% time savings when using document automation to generate contracts and other legal documents.

How can document automation produce such staggering results?

Document automation gives you a smarter starting point

With document automation, you are no longer forced to:

• Start from scratch. You no longer must spend hours – or even days – drafting contracts or other legal documents from scratch. Just answer a few questions, and your new document is ready in mere moments.
• Search for templates and forms. Even if you have prior experience with the type of document you need to draft – and therefore aren’t starting from scratch – you will still likely find yourself frantically searching through your folders and hard drive for an old example to update. So, when a client requires a new contract or another legal document, you will need to wade through your older documents, copying and pasting from several different contracts, to create the new document you need. But with document automation, your templates already exist – saving you time. 
• Waste time modifying existing documents. And even if you are lucky enough to find an old exemplar document, you still need to go through the document line by line, updating its various provisions to meet your needs. This reworking process is time-consuming, particularly if you want to make sure you haven’t made mistakes or left in old, irrelevant provisions.  Document automation solves these problems, not to mention it dramatically reduces the risks of errors. 
• Get new associates up to speed. Not only does document automation save you time, but it also saves time for other lawyers at your firm – meaning you do not have to spend countless hours training new associates. Once an lawyer has access to the firm’s document automation software, they can create new legal documents in minutes. Simply put, document automation allows new associates to get up to speed faster than ever, which ultimately improves your firm’s bottom line. 

Manually drafting long, repetitive legal documents for your clients can quickly become a waste of time and resources. Fortunately, there is an obvious solution to this problem: document automation.