Automated legal forms can be life-changing for your law firm
Paperwork has to happen in a law firm. Agreements need to be drawn up. Letters need to be sent. You don’t need us to list everything. But let’s be honest. People who truly enjoy laying those important but tedious paper trails are rare. If you’ve ever wished a legal document would just complete itself and let you take care of other things, legal document automation tools equipped with automated legal forms can get you at least part of the way there.
“I love juggling all the minutiae that comes with assembling legal documents.” — No one, ever
What are the benefits of legal document automation tools?
When a firm stores client, calendar, and case information on a flexible database platform, that platform can sync with legal form builder software that saves incredible amounts of time and lets your team focus on more profitable activities than pulling basic information every time a document needs to be assembled.
Have client conversations once
Automated legal forms work their magic by relying on a system that prompts thorough client interviews and makes all the information captured easy to access and reuse. For instance, many documents require the same client basics, and legal form builder software knows right where to find it and exactly where in the automated legal document it needs to go. There’s no need for the person assembling the document to look for and retype info or, worse, call the client for a piece of information the firm should have at-the-ready.
Be professional and precise
Legal forms automation allows your practice to set a style and format for all documents produced, so they look like they came from the same, well-organized firm. And by creating document templates, anyone assembling a document can be sure they’re adhering to your best practices, using your firm’s preferred language, and ensuring accuracy all along the path from intake to outcome no matter how complicated the documents you’re creating may be. A system that knows what a document needs will also help you guard against missing a step along the way by actually guiding you through the creation of the document and asking you questions based on system knowledge of what information needs to go where.
2022 Legal Document Management and Assembly Buyers Guide
Better understand the benefits of document automation for your law firm with your free copy of LegalTech’s Document Management and Assembly Buyers Guide.
Avoid wasting time
Manual document assembly is rife with opportunities for misspellings, incomplete cut-and-paste commands, misplaced material and plenty of other human errors that can easily be avoided by giving people legal document automation tools that take unnecessary work off their plates. By drawing on templates and a database of verified information, automated legal forms cut down on errors; which reduces the amount of time spent finding and correcting errors. Eliminating excessive rounds of proofreading and corrections adds up to saving time and money.
Know what you’re working on
Automated legal forms also prevent version proliferation. Rather than having everyone involved in a case download their own copy of a document, and then make changes that have to be collected, compiled, and entered into a master document, legal forms automation allows entire teams to work on a single document and provides a detailed who/what/when account of any changes. Plus, as we referred to earlier, anyone who needs to add client-specific information to a document will be pulling it from the same verified database, which means collaborators can trust each other’s information.
Explore the possibilities
“I really hate having my life made easier.” — Also no one, ever
Don’t wait to start looking into legal forms automation. This blog really only scratches the surface of what it can do for your law practice. In addition to the benefits mentioned here, you’ll find many other ways in which automated legal forms have a ripple effect that can improve life throughout your firm. When the tasks no one looks forward to become less and less tedious, people become happier and happier on the job. And that happiness eventually translates to happier clients, as well.
Interested in exploring how HotDocs can make automated legal forms a reality? Learn more about legal document automation software.