Technology Innovation via Document Automation is Legal’s Missing Link in Evolution

The evolution of the legal industry is occurring right before our eyes. According to an article on Legal Executive Institute, law firms and in-house legal departments, the definition of evolution can mean something entirely different, yet the same. Perhaps your journey on the path of evolution requires improved KPIs oriented to faster, better, and most definitely cheaper legal services to clients and in-house customers.

In law firms, the target is more clients, more billable hours, and higher profitability. In corporate legal departments, it’s reduced legal spend, improved productivity, and increased revenue, among other factors.

In both, technology innovation is critical to continuous evolution of legal services no matter where you sit.

Thomson Reuters Contract Express™ is an enterprise, web-based solution for legal document assembly. Trusted by the world’s leading corporations and law firms, Contract Express® allows users the ability to automate creation of their most-used legal documents, reducing and eliminating delays, costs, bottlenecks, and the risks inherent with manual drafting. The result is faster, more efficient, and compliant legal services and products.

Are you on the path of technology innovation with automated document creation?

Document Automation With Thomson Reuters Contract Express

Document automation is technology innovation. It helps your firm or corporation evolve with a breadth of benefits you can’t get with manual document drafting. Sadly though, technology the likes of document automation is often put by the wayside as “too this, or too that.” For those law firms and corporate legal departments with a visionary approach and regard for technology innovation, the benefits are numerous and long-term.

Let’s highlight some of the most important benefits of Contract Express to assist your firm or corporation in making the decision to innovate and evolve with document automation technology. With Contract Express, you can:

1. Offer a dynamic and patented questionnaire. Imagine the ability to serve up a questionnaire to corporate business units and law firm clients that captures details for each repetitive contract, like NDAs. Errors are reduced, risk is mitigated, and you invite clients and customers to participate in their legal services.
2. Reduce bottlenecks in every department and position. Because Contract Express is automated document assembly with built-in questionnaires and resulting templates, the process from start to finish is reduced by hours for any document. When you look at the comparison between using document automation over manual drafting, hands down, Contract Express wins.
3. Save time. By reducing bottlenecks from manual document drafting, every department and legal team can free up time. This is a critical benefit of Contract Express that contributes to attorneys’ ability to dedicate more time to more in-depth negotiations and matters.
4. Reduce legal spend. When a corporate legal department brings document drafting and assembly in-house with Contract Express, there’s an advantage with a reduction in legal spend for that service. Corporate attorneys work less on document drafting, and not only do they find more time, they also find more budget for other issues and concerns.
5. Consider alternative fee arrangements. Law firms continuously seek ways to improve relationships with corporate counsel, and one sure-fire way is to create alternative fee arrangements.

By giving clients access to a Contract Express portal with its automatic questionnaire and contract drafting template, lawyers are in standby mode to help clients on an as-needed basis. Clients add details up front while a lawyer reviews the end product for accuracy.

Law Firm Innovation Gap

With all this discussion about technology innovation to evolve the practice of law, Legal Tech News points to a study that seems to suggest there is an “innovation gap” between what corporate clients expect and what their law firms are delivering.

The survey, commissioned by Thompson Hine, an Am Law 200 firm founded in Cleveland, asked in-house counsel and senior executives at 176 companies how much “innovation” they were seeing among their law firms. A mere 4% replied, “a lot.” The vast majority – 81% – replied “a little” or “hardly any.” And 15% said “none.”

At times, those looking at only the bottom line disregard technology as a method of enhancing productivity, reducing cost, making workflow efficient, and delivering other benefits. It’s time to evolve with technology trends and innovation from Thomson Reuters and specifically Contract Express.

Please take a moment to consider whether your legal department or practice group is as productive as they can be. Then, tap into Thomson Reuters Contract Express and let our team set you up with a free trial.