Legal documents have been called the lifeblood of any law firm, and they are.
In fact, legal documents have lives of their own. Important lives. They go through a process of maturing and changing until they become fully realized representations of the work a legal team has put into a matter on behalf of a client.
Working manually, with traditional paper documents, that development process has always been time-consuming, unwieldy, and more than a little hectic. Everything from finding exactly the document you need to making manual changes costs a legal team valuable time and adds cost for clients.
Document automation, working from the premise that legal documents are living documents, allows users to access precise information quickly and modify existing documents without having to redo entire sections, essentially reinventing the wheel every time a change is needed.
With document automation, every document is in real-time, all the time.
Folders are so…20th Century
The folders on a computer desktop may look high-tech, compared to the piles of manila folders firms dealt with back in the day, but they really aren’t that much more useful. A contemporary law firm needs a far more dynamic approach to organizing and accessing documents and information than a folder-based content management system.
Rather than simply letting you see and macro-search what’s in your filing system, a comprehensive document automation solution tracks the entire lifecycle of information from the moment you enter it into the record of a case to the point when it is no longer needed. It allows you to execute highly targeted searches, securely collaborate on documents both inside and outside your firm, automate routine workflows such as document signing, and much more.
Most important, strong document automation protects highly sensitive information. If there’s a “folder” that should be locked in a safe, a document automation solution will lock it down tight, restrict access to only those who need it, and closely track activity related to the information.
Manage caseloads in the cloud
With document automation, a firm creates an authoritative database of activity on each matter in every caseload. It’s known as “a single source of truth.” If you need to know the who, what and when regarding document activity, there is no question as to “where” because everyone is working in the same dynamic environment in which documents are developed over time rather than regenerated multiple times.
This reduces the margin for error and, because the most effective solutions are cloud-based, document automation facilitates efficient, cooperative collaboration across departments and even worldwide locations.
Whatever the size of your firm, there is a cloud-based document automation solution that can be tailored to your exact needs. Whether you’re a one-lawyer shop or a 100-plus firm, document automation can take your practice to whole new levels of client-satisfying efficiency and everyday firm well-being.
