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Automated Estate Planning: The Advantages of Using Automation Software for Drafting Wills and Enduring Power of Attorney Documents

Posted by Gene Turner on 24-Feb-2024 16:35:32

Estate planning, particularly the creation of wills and enduring powers of attorney (EPAs), is an underappreciated field requiring a lot of expertise.

Lawyers and legal executives often invest extensive hours researching, verifying, and customising clauses for wills, all while managing the heavy administrative load of gathering and inputting data into multiple documents for various individuals.

It doesn't have to be this hard, though.

Embracing technological advancements has transformed the process of will and EPA creation for modern firms wanting to adopt the most efficient processes and provide the best outcomes for their clients.

In this post, we delve into why leading industry players are now turning to software solutions for the streamlined creation of even the most intricate documents, specifically focusing on wills and EPA documents.

This article focuses on specific document automation software, not the basic functionality you get in practice management systems, which is often marketed as if it has the same capabilities.

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Topics: Future of Law, Document Automation, Legal Technology, Wills, Estates, Law Firm Management, Legal Automation, Law Firm Marketing, Law Firm Strategy, Law Firm Profitability, Law Firm Pricing

LawHawk's Major Themes for 2024

Posted by Gene Turner on 14-Jan-2024 10:40:00

Looking ahead to the coming year, I think (maybe with a bit of hope thrown in) several themes will be key. This is what we will be focussing on helping our customers with, and in our own business.

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Topics: Practise of Law, Future of Law, Document Automation, Legal Technology, Law Firm Management, Compliance, Legal Operations, Contract Management, Law Firm Strategy, Productivity

Value for money in All of Government External Legal Services Contract

Posted by Gene Turner on 28-Sep-2022 08:52:42

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have just released an Advance Notice of their intention to re-tender the All of Government External Legal Services contract, which expires on 22 September 2023.

The revised fee structure caught my eye.

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Topics: Future of Law, In-House Legal, Law Firm Management, Legal Automation, Matter Management, Legal Operations, Value Pricing

Don't worry if it is innovative!

Posted by Gene Turner on 14-Jun-2021 08:33:41

Are we too focussed on whether something is innovative?

That might seem an unusual question for me to ask, you might think. After all, haven’t I been on the Advisory Board for the College of Law’s Centre for Legal Innovation for the last five years?

Isn't a large part of what LawHawk does looking at existing processes, how they can be re-engineered, and finding new ways to work for better results?

Given how little innovation has occurred in the legal profession, don’t we want to see much more of it?

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Topics: Practise of Law, Future of Law, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, legal practice, Law Firm Management

LawFest – Beyond Innovation Theatre – The Reality of Tech Adoption in Law Firms

Posted by Gene Turner on 28-Jan-2021 19:04:42

It’s coming up to 5 years since LawHawk launched.

Back then, nobody was really doing legal automation. Cloud technology was only just starting to emerge and, quite fairly, most firms had little to no experience of successful automation to talk about.

In the next couple of years there were a lot of press releases about firms adopting one solution or another, but surprisingly little publication of any actual results that had come from the project. Either the firm never had a plan for broader roll-out beyond a small initial team of enthusiasts, or the realities of successful legal tech project management quickly stalled things.

So five years on, I feel there are still too many people talking about what other people should be doing, without any obvious experience of having done it themselves, or offering any insights into how others can do it too. Particularly how to get started and how to overcome the inevitable obstacles that arise.

Which is why I’m pleased to be participating in LawFest 2021 on 3 March, with a panel of people who have all got first hand experience of successful delivery of legal tech projects, and who can share insights that will help others to do the same.

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Topics: Practise of Law, Future of Law, Legal Technology

7 Law Firm options for Wills and EPAs

Posted by Gene Turner on 31-Jul-2020 21:54:28

Did you notice that Public Trust recently launched an online wills and enduring powers of attorney service? Yes, you did read that right. Even Public Trust now have online wills and enduring powers of attorney.

You may be thinking this presents an issue for LawHawk, given we also offer online wills and enduring powers of attorney. It probably will affect part of our business. We may lose some online opportunities to Public Trust, but at the same time their presence online will also help to grow the overall online market. Time will tell but I think it's a positive move for making wills and EPAs more accessible.

Online wills and enduring powers of attorney are still very much a niche offer, appealing to those who are comfortable or prefer doing the whole process themselves online, or who either cannot afford, or choose not to pay the costs of, a traditional legal service.

Our online offers direct to the public represents only a small part of our overall business. The larger part of our focus – as it always has been - is working with law firms to help them to offer a better and more affordable service to their clients, while also making this a more satisfying and profitable part of the practice.

In my opinion, this further shift towards online wills and enduring powers of attorney should be of greater concern to law firms in respect of their own practices. Until relatively recently, law firms were in total control of when and how clients could get wills and powers of attorney, and what it would cost. The only real competition was the trustee companies. One was recovering from significant financial and operational issues, and the other was only working 4 days per week. Both had reputations for poor service and high fees. So not much competition, and no great surprise that law firms felt no pressure to innovate their own services.

Now, both of the trustee companies have online capabilities and are pushing them hard.

How should law firms respond? I can see several possible options. The first two are:

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Topics: Practise of Law, Future of Law, Document Automation, Legal Technology, Document Assembly, Wills, Law Firm Management

It's about relationships, not tech

Posted by Gene Turner on 28-Jun-2020 20:24:45

Much of what we do here at LawHawk is far more about relationships, rather than technology.

There are so many ways of doing things better, using different types of technology or none, that you can only figure out the right approach for a particular customer through collaborative, open, discussion.

I believe this is true in any industry, but particularly in legal because many common processes are so overly complex – and sometimes bizarre – that it can be hard to unpick how they currently work, and how they ideally would work given the people involved and other relevant circumstances, without really good communication and trusting relationships.

Two things particularly reminded me of this recently.

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Topics: Future of Law, Document Automation, Legal Technology, In-House Legal, Document Assembly, Digital Signatures

More thoughts on digital signing and remote witnessing

Posted by Gene Turner on 14-Apr-2020 11:41:50

On 9 April, Rohan Cochrane (Director, Family Law Specialists) and I delivered a webinar for the New Zealand Law Society on Remote witnessing and signing of documents during COVID-19 lock-down.

There were nearly 4,000 people on the webinar, which gives some indication of the extent to which lawyers are looking for new solutions at this time.

We didn't have a lot of time to prepare for the webinar, as it was put together on short notice.  My thinking was still coming together during the webinar, as I saw questions coming through on the chat feed.  It’s continuing to evolve, which is why I’m writing this post.

Our goal in the webinar was to look at some of the areas that appear to be causing the most issues, and to identify the most practical approaches we could.  

We weren't suggesting that anything we said was sure to be legally effective, or accepted by every other party to a process (e.g. the recipient of an affidavit).

We also weren't suggesting that these were the only, or even the best way to manage things.  I’m working on further ideas, and would certainly be keen for others that were on the webinar to build further on our suggestions, or to come up with better alternatives, and share those.  

Having had a little more time to reflect on things, I’ve been able to summarise my thinking further.  These views are my own, and not necessarily those of Rohan, the NZLS, or anyone else! 

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Topics: Future of Law, Document Automation, Legal Technology, Document Assembly, Digital Signatures, Covid-19

The hawks helping lawyers automate legal documents

Posted by Gene Turner on 05-Jul-2019 19:24:37

 

I was interviewed for LawTalk 930 on what LawHawk has been up to, and how we are going. 

You can read the full article here, and below. 

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Topics: Practise of Law, Future of Law, Document Automation, Document Assembly, legal practice, Law Firm Management

Legal tech in New Zealand: Where is the disruption?

Posted by Gene Turner on 05-Jul-2019 18:02:13

 

I was interviewed for LawTalk 930 on what impact legal tech is actually having on the New Zealand legal market.  

You can read the full article here, and below. 

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Topics: Practise of Law, Future of Law, Document Automation, Document Assembly, legal practice, Law Firm Management

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