3 ways to use automation to be a better lawyer when drafting routine legal documents

March 11, 2020

Guest post by Gavel (previously Documate), a powerful document automation software platform that helps lawyers turn templates and forms into intelligent workflows.

The modern age of lawyering combines the experience and wisdom of lawyers with the benefits of advanced technologies. While there’s been much debate on whether or not robots are taking away human jobs, the reality is that automation offers many benefits that improve the practice of law.

Automation is not about humans vs. robots or machines replacing humans, but rather about how machines, and specifically automation, are empowering humans and helping lawyers be better at their jobs. Lawyers who are equipped with the right technology and automation tools can work more effectively and efficiently, eliminate errors, and bring more value to clients.

Offloading routine, repetitive tasks like document drafting and assembly is key to boosting productivity and efficiency. The following are three of the greatest benefits of document automation.

1. Ensure 100% accuracy, every single time

Accuracy is critical in all legal documents. Even the smallest of typos can lead to huge disputes and costly errors (or, at the very least, embarrassment in front of a client). Ensuring accuracy when manually preparing documents is difficult even for short documents. For long documents, it’s nearly impossible.

Document automation changes all that. With the right document automation tools, you can ensure 100% accuracy in all documents, including lengthy template documents and complex, interrelated document sets. Manually checking for errors is a timely, laborious process that remains prone to human error. Automation, in contrast, can ensure complete accuracy in a fraction of the time.

Achieving accuracy through document automation not only saves time and money, it boosts client satisfaction in the process. In business, time is money, and the ability to quickly and accurately prepare documents will keep your in-house legal and business teams happy.

2. Organized document and data management

Most documents in corporate law do not exist in a vacuum. Corporate and in-house lawyers regularly reuse the same information and data across multiple documents in a transaction or from transaction to transaction for a recurring client.

In order to be able to seamlessly reuse your information, you need to have your data and documents stored in a secure, centralized place. Document automation tools give you the data and document management capabilities you need to fully collaborate with your team and clients in order to efficiently produce all the documents you need across all transactions without reinventing the wheel each time.

3. Personal freedom

The time-saving benefits of automation tools have not only freed lawyers up to make more time for better serving clients and handling higher-value work, they have also allowed for something that historically has been notoriously hard to come by in lawyers’ lives – personal time.

By entrusting routine tasks like document drafting and assembly to sophisticated automation tools, lawyers regain time and freedom in their own lives. When you can eliminate the hours and hours that manual drafting and proofreading require, you can use that time to handle your other work and still have some time left over for yourself. It’s a win-win for lawyers and clients – lawyers get personal enjoyment from being able to focus on their lives outside of work, while clients reap the benefits of having work performed by lawyers who are well-rested and more focused.

Taking advantage of automation means finding the right tools to streamline your workflows and manage your data. Document automation tools allow lawyers to increase productivity, ensure accuracy and consistency, boost efficiency, and become more client-focused in ways that were never previously possible.

Drafting routine legal documents doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming. Automation is the key to creating productivity and efficiency in the document preparation process.

Voted the top document automation software by Above the Law, Gavel is a no-code, powerful software platform that can help you build legal applications to generate your documents in a fraction of the time.  Watch Documate’s video demo here, or contact Gavel for a live demo.

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