Automation in the legal sector does not mean replacing lawyers with robots. It is instead about streamlining repetitive and redundant tasks, reducing administrative costs, and providing more time and space for lawyers to practice important work.
Tasks such as , payment collection, document creation, and data entry often take up significant working time, which can lead to frustration among lawyers due to time spent away from clients. That’s particularly true of small firms, where lawyers have no access to secretaries, paralegals, or practice management teams. Administrative work in such firms typically falls to junior lawyers.
Automation ensures that menial tasks take little time. Indeed, truly effective legal automation, automation of the future, would mean lawyers could avoid all administrative tasks.
Legal automation is not the wholesale replacement of existing services. Automation is usually small-scale, concerned with data entry, billing and payments, document creation and maintenance, and other routine administrative tasks. Indeed, is best understood as a process of simplification, shifting tedious tasks from humans to machines.
That could mean the streamlining of processes, such as using to complete repetitive tasks quicker and with more accuracy. It could mean centralising information, ensuring greater access is available across firms and reducing search time. It could mean to third-parties better equipped at specific automation, taking advantage of the merits of specialisation.
The benefits of automation in the . Here are five of the most important benefits, all of which can prove particularly helpful to smaller law firms.
1. Less time spent on tedious tasks
According to the in 2019, the average lawyer works only 2.5 hours of client-facing work per day. It’s clear that lawyers spend too much time performing tasks that fail to utilise skills and expertise, instead performing tasks that could be done more accurately by a machine. Perhaps the greatest benefit of automation is that it allows lawyers to focus on work that matters.
And that has a knock-on benefit. One myth around automation is that it removes the human element, the human touch. Automation in the legal sector, however, allows for quite the opposite. It gives lawyers more time to engage in human tasks, more time looking after the needs of clients.
2. Reduces costs
The cost-efficiency of legal automation is well-known. Automation in the legal sector ensures high-value lawyers do not spend hours completing low-value work. It also ensures that low-value work can be completed at scale, with hundreds of administrative tasks in quick succession.
Legal automation also decreases expenditure on administrative staff, conventional office space, and other hidden overheads.
The cost of human error is also reduced. Humans are fallible, particularly in a fast-moving sector where work is often performed under pressure. Automation decreases the chance and scope of error, which in turn reduces the costs associated with mistakes.
3. Increases lawyer satisfaction
People seldom dream of becoming lawyers for the admin. It’s an obvious point, substantiated by the above benefits, but lawyers are happier with menial and tedious tasks automated. , utilising their skills and expertise, and engaging in more rewarding work.
Increases to lawyer satisfaction has the knock-on effect of greater , which in turn reduces the implicit costs of onboarding, provides law firm stability, and boosts a firm’s reputation.
4. Improves client experience
Improvements to client experience largely depends on many of the above benefits. If low-value work is automated, for example, lawyers will be able to spend time focussed on clients, . Similarly, if legal automation reduces costs, firms can pass cost savings on to the client.
5. Allows firms to compete
All of the above benefits lead to overall improvements in the firm. That means that law firms will be better able to compete in the future, which is particularly true for smaller firms. Automation challenges economies of scale, offering small firms advantages usually only enjoyed by bigger firms.
The firms that shy away from automation , adopting a static position as other firms cut costs and streamline processes. Simply put, automation is fast becoming an essential element in the practice of law. Firms cannot afford not to automate.
The benefits are clear, but legal automation means choosing the right tasks to automate, which can be a little complicated. A found that nearly two thirds of in-house legal work is repetitive or routine. There are plenty of tasks that could be automated. So where do you start?
One essential piece of advice is to start small. Evaluate the value of different tasks. Identify high-volume and low-value work that might prove ripe for automation. Think about tasks that take up loads of time but require little skill and think about tasks that are particularly repetitive. You can rely on instincts and preference at the earlier stages – use legal tech to perform the jobs that you hate.
The best tasks to automate will depend on the nature of your firm. Popular targets for small-scale automation are , which streamlines legal document management, allowing firms to embark on faster and more accurate document drafting, review, and maintenance.
Another popular target is , which appeals to firms because of the general tedium and time-consuming nature of the task. Payment collection is another process ripe for automation, as legal tech is able to seamlessly collect electronic payments with less room for error.
The key point is for each firm to consider their needs, as different firms have different demands. Think carefully about the jobs prone to repetition, the low-value work. Start small and then expand.
As they start to feel more comfortable with automation, firms may be confronted with an entirely different problem. Over-automation occurs when the benefits of automation are outnumbered by the costs. Firms need to be cautious that processes that require the human element are not automated, as the automation can actually create greater inefficiencies.
Automation in the legal sector, as we have already demonstrated, usually improves client experience. But over-automation can have a negative impact on client experience, where have been automated. That form of over-automation can frustrate clients, as the tech can seem cold, unresponsive, and incapable of reacting appropriately to client needs.
Automation in the legal sector depends on research, meeting needs, and finding legal solutions. The first step that firms should take is , with strict guidelines, timeframes, and personal responsibilities detailed in full. The plan should include regular reviews of the process, too, along with feedback at appropriate times that will inform further development.
Automation depends on finding the right legal tech. There are plenty of options on the market, all of which could appeal to individual firms, but many of which will not suit individual firms. It is therefore essential that firms do their research, rather than jumping into the first option that they come across.
It’s also vital that firms keep needs front-of-mind. Each firm will have different requirements, all of which will demand different legal solutions. Consider needs, think about goals and objectives, cross-reference your ambitions with options on the market, and find the most cost-effective solution.
Plenty of options exist that can meet your automation needs, even on the smaller scale. Lexis Create, for example, helps lawyers to automate legal documents and pinpoint mistakes. The tool allows lawyers to find clauses, delegate document creation, review legal documents so that small mistakes do not cause big problems, ensure work is client-ready, validate citations, and more.
Regardless of your choice of legal solution, the key is to start the process. Automation will play an ever-greater role in the future of the legal sector and the firms of the future will embrace the changes.
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Ioan Marc Jones writes on law, politics, and economics for The Independent, openDemocracy, Economy, The Huffington Post, ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ, and many other publications.
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