Document automation (sometimes referred to as document assembly) is a way to create electronic documents using computer systems and workflows, instead of the traditional way of manually working through a document, finding areas to be customised, and typing or deleting relevant details.

At its simplest, document automation can include capture and automatic entry of items like party names and dates. Those who have used it in this way often believe that is all it can be used for.

However, modern document automation technology now allows for far more advanced uses, controlling hundreds or thousands of sections of optional text to create highly customised documents in just a few minutes. In this way it allows users to: 

• Prepare better documents
• Faster
• With more delegation
• At lower cost
• With lower risk

Broad range of automation options

There are many ways that you can get started with document automation, and there is bound to be one that fits your requirements.

You don’t need to go “all in” on one particular approach to begin with, and it doesn’t have to be perfect to start delivering substantial benefits – one key benefit being that by working faster you will have increasingly more time to continue with more automation and enhancing what you already have.

Some of the key options – and my experience with them – are set out below.

1   Microsoft Office tools

If what you want to do is not that complicated, you could use the existing functionality within Microsoft Word or Excel. This could be simple use of the autocorrect feature, or - more complicated - using macros. You may already be using these for your correspondence templates.

My experience is that Word Macros didn’t work as well as I wanted for more complex automation. It wasn’t something I could do myself, and it took a long time to write instructions for someone else to do it for me. I found it hard to test what they had done, and we never managed to complete any of the complex documents I worked on to the point I was happy with them. While notionally “free”, this had a big opportunity cost. For simple documents, it was great, but I needed something more.

2   Automation within your practice management system

Most practice management systems will already contain some level of automation capability. I haven’t used them myself, so this is just what other people have told me.

One of the big potential benefits of these systems that lawyers really love is that they can pull information from their practice management system (particularly names and addresses) and pre-populate certain fields in their documents. This is relatively basic automation, but could be very useful if the information is in the practice management system is accurate and complete. I would guess this is a pretty big “if”.

What I am often told, however, is that for more complex automation some firms have struggled to achieve the level of customisation that they would like using these systems. Automation is an add-on to the core product features, and is not as strong as the main parts of the product. If this is the case for you, you may want a product specifically designed for document automation.

3   Specific automation products- with separate IT help

Fortunately, if you want to do more complex automation, there are a number of specific automation products that you can use. These include HotDocs (which LawHawk is using), ContractExpress, and Exari. Again, these products each have their individual strengths and weaknesses, which will change as the technology rapidly evolves.

In my case, I started working with HotDocs because it was the market leader in document automation, and the IT people I was working with said we would be more likely to work quickly and robustly to finish what we started. There was never any doubt that it could handle anything we threw at it, because it has been used for years on complex banking documents.

The challenge we still faced though is not the power of the technology – but how to apply it in a way that is useful to lawyers. IT people generally don’t think like lawyers, and lawyers generally don’t think like IT people. IT people and lawyers generally don’t think like business people. I found myself spending a LOT of time writing very detailed instructions about things I thought/hoped were possible, which the developer needed to take away, interpret and try and implement. By the time he returned (weeks later, as he was juggling other projects), I was often tied up on client work (for weeks or months). We tried sharing an office for 2 months during January and February when it should have been quieter but it still didn’t work as a major client tendered their legal work. By the time I was able to look at his work, I couldn’t remember what I’d wanted in the first place, but I knew this wasn’t it, and we’d set off for another round.

This is a common complaint I hear about document automation in general. The initial objectives are – rightly - set very high, but as it becomes too difficult to achieve, the goals are scaled back to the point where the end product is underwhelming given the work that has gone into it – more like the basic form filling mentioned above. This is where the view that “you can’t automate anything complex” comes from.

4   Automation products – do it yourself

I eventually asked my developer (just after he resigned, probably to avoid more boring document automation work) if it would be possible to learn how to do the automation myself, and to my surprise he said that yes, I probably could. In the case of HotDocs there is quite extensive guidance available. You can work through various tutorials, and pick up many of the simplest elements very quickly, which I did while on sabbatical (I can see now that I was mentally unwell at the time to have used my break in that way).

Instead of spending many hours writing detailed instructions on how to choose between reasonable endeavours, all reasonable endeavours, best endeavours or an absolute obligation within a single sentence, I could manage a lot of that in my head. It requires strong concentration, but you can continually test whether it works as you want, and only move on when it does.

However, for every two steps forward in the beginning I often took one step back as I made a lot of mistakes. Even the stuff that worked was, with hindsight, ugly, ugly programming that I’ve subsequently re-worked. “Simple” things like capturing party details and creating execution blocks for an unlimited number of parties of a broad range of types has been among the most difficult things to master – particularly for trusts and partnerships. I wasn’t surprised when I recently spoke to a lawyer who had been doing his own automation and he said he had spent a month learning how to get execution blocks working!

If you go down this route, you will need the patience and perseverance to see it through to the benefits which are definitely there to be taken. If ongoing automation is not a core part of your strategy, however, consider the opportunity costs to your main goals of developing and maintaining your core practice – where you and your team cannot afford to cut back in such a competitive market.

5   A managed service

My slow progression through the steps above led me to a fifth option – a managed service. Having realised that complex document automation is possible, identified a market leading platform that can do it, learned how to use that system to automate efficiently and without the time consuming delays of handing tasks between different people, and realised that cloud computing now allows the benefits of document automation to be made available to anyone with an internet connection as a managed service, the idea for LawHawk began to form.  It doesn’t make sense to me for all of New Zealand’s predominantly small law firms to try and become experts in document automation themselves.

The LawHawk service is based on our ability to review your documents for you (without cost or obligation) and using our combined knowledge of law and technology to tell you what we think could be done and how, how long it would take, what it would cost and what level of involvement or guidance we would need from you. If you like what we say – and can see a substantial pay-back – we’ll deliver what we promised. You can be as involved as you want to be, but only pay when you receive agreed deliverables, avoiding the expensive mistakes and trial and error that plagued my early attempts at document automation.

Because it’s available as a service, you can control the amount you spend and ensure you will receive a pay-back. It will cost less, and take less time, than you think. As an indication, a simple document can be automated within an hour, and even a complex one within a week.

3   steps to begin

My view is that document automation is the way that lawyers will work, and the only question is how you will use it. Automation is already becoming common overseas, and I know that most, if not all, of New Zealand’s larger firms are actively looking at it.

Consider this– how would you compete against someone who can deliver high quality work 10x faster than you can work?

In considering the options above, and assessing which one suits you best, here are my three key recommendations:

1          Start with your strategy

As with any new technology, whether and how you use it should be aligned with your business strategy. You should focus on areas that you already have, or want to develop, real strength and differentiation in.

For example, if you are an expert in a particular area of law, why not turn that expertise into a product – a set of top quality automated documents that you can prepare very quickly, so you can focus on helping clients to implement those arrangements in a way that works in practice. And then promote the hell out of it to generate work nationally.

The areas where you have the greatest strengths are likely also the ones where you have the best existing precedents to start automating.

2          Pick the low hanging fruit

Good document automation software can handle almost any level of complexity. It’s very tempting to shoot for the ultimate goal of having all of your document automated and completely integrated, so you can complete them all at (nearly) the push of a button. The risk of this approach is that you can spend a lot of time and effort before you start to benefit, and by the time you reach the end goal, you may have learned that you want to do it differently.

A better approach is to start with some of the simpler documents that you use all the time. Get those automated, and you’ll free up time to do the more complex things. When they’re individually automated, you can join them up.

I have learned a lot (and changed my approach significantly) as a result of building in this way.

3          Then challenge yourself

Once you have some experience with a number of simpler documents, you can more easily attack the more complex documents. Much of what you have done on earlier documents may be able to be incorporated into the more complex documents. You’ll find that you can automate very complex documents, containing many hundreds or thousands of sections of optional text. Individual documents can start to be combined into sets, with a single interview to control all of them.

Because you’re working so differently, you can start to explore very different (and more profitable, satisfying and sustainable business models).  

Contact LawHawk for an initial discussion about your specific legal document automation challenges and how to find an effective solution.