The concept of a client-centric law firm is far from new. However, the rise of alternative legal service providers and increasing client expectations in recent years has pushed law firms to take a more client-centric approach. 

Modern-day legal clients are efficient, agile, and tech-savvy, and they expect their legal partners to be the same. So, it’s no surprise that today’s legal buyers tend to favour firms that assume the role of proactive partner and leverage technology to deliver an enhanced client experience. In fact, according to the State of the UK Legal Market 2022 report, 28% of legal buyers say that a “deep understanding of their clients’ business” is the top skill they look for in their lawyers. 

So, what does it take to be a client-centric firm? Running a client-centric firm means putting your clients at the centre of your approach and looking at the experience of working with your firm from the viewpoint of your clients. Essentially, a lawyer’s role is to help clients resolve legal issues quickly, accurately - and hopefully, profitability. Fortunately, new technologies have made it easier than ever for firms to improve efficiency and deliver better client service. From e-signatures and client onboarding to workflow improvements, more firms are adopting legal technologies to streamline processes, deliver high quality services, and create a better client experience. 

One such firm is Wedlake Bell, a London-based UK Top-100 law firm, which offers a wide range of bespoke legal services to clients of all sizes in the UK. The contemporary law firm recently modernised its supply chain management services to drive operational efficiencies, address technology constraints, and deliver a more streamlined experience for its clients. Here, we offer some real-world lessons on improving client service from one of the UK’s top firms. 

Delivering Enhanced Client Service with Automated Workflows

With 70 partners supported by more than 170 lawyers and support staff, Wedlake Bell operates on a four practice group model: private client, business services, real estate, and disputes. As part of its business services practice, Wedlake Bell’s IP & Commercial team partners with major retailers to help them audit the supply chain of specific batches of products sold in nationwide stores - a critical part of mitigating reputational, quality and compliance risk. 

The firm’s lawyers deliver these audits in the form of an Inspection Report, which includes relevant and time-sensitive due diligence information. Typically, a lawyer is managing multiple reports at a time across various clients, which can be incredibly complex and time-consuming and result slow response times. Previously, Wedlake Bell’s team relied on a legacy system to help them manage, generate, and deliver these reports to clients. However, the outdated system often constrained their ability to improve processes and drive efficiencies.

So, the firm reached out to Sysero with the idea of modernising its legacy system to achieve operational efficiencies and ultimately deliver a better experience for its clients. After gaining a strong understanding of Wedlake Bell’s internal processes, Sysero helped the firm design and deploy a new no-code workflow application to streamline and automate the process of managing and multiple audits simultaneously. Through the new application, lawyers can now access and manage supplier information via a centralised web-based database and leverage online forms to quickly and easily generate dynamic Inspection Reports. By employing automated technology to simplify and streamline supply chain audits, Wedlake Bell can now deliver Inspection Reports with speed and accuracy, delivering a valuable service to its clients. 

The client service benefits of the automated system include:

• Increased Efficiency: The retail world moves quickly, so that means Wedlake Bell’s lawyers must as well to help their clients stay atop of potential pitfalls. With the new automated application, lawyers can easily and quickly build Inspection Reports as they uncover new information. They simply input data into the online form, save, and return at a later point to enter further information. This means that lawyers can quickly build multiple reports as they go, making it much more efficient for them to manage numerous complex reports simultaneously.

• Better Client Communication: Clear and consistent communication with clients is a core part of an excellent client experience. Using the new application, lawyers can more easily keep their clients abreast of the status of their reports. Additionally, it’s simple for lawyers to make updates to reports and regenerate them to send to clients, delivering a fast response time. 

• High Quality Deliverables: At the heart of good legal advice is quality. By automating the supply chain audit process, Wedlake Bell removed the complexity of managing multiple reports concurrently, thus reducing risk. Plus, with all of the required evidence and documentation collated into a single case file for each client, it’s easier than ever for lawyers to ensure they have the right information.

Since realising the benefits of its client-centric approach to supply chain audit management, Wedlake Bell continues to add further stages of automation to its application in an effort to enhance efficiencies even more and provide clients with greater visibility into the status of their deals. 

While there are many ways to go about running a client-centric firm, Wedlake Bell is a perfect example of how unlocking the power of new technologies can drive process improvements, enhance client communication, and ultimately deliver an exceptional client experience. If your firm is moving towards a more client-centric approach, investing in the right technology, thinking about the right processes, and evolving those processes when opportunities arise will accelerate your path to an improved client experience. 

Looking to create more client-centric processes? Discover Sysero’s workflow automation tools and get in touch with our team to discuss your project. 

It’s not surprising that lawyers work such long hours, when you consider they spend an average of almost 3 hours a day on administrative tasks. A large portion of lawyers’ time is spent reviewing legal requests and documents, completing repetitive transactional paperwork, and going through endless follow up cycles with clients. All of which take valuable time away from building better relationships with existing clients and pursuing new work. 

The good news is that there is a better way to work. The answer lies in easy-to-use self-service portals that capture information directly from clients. This approach allows for transitions to be started at any time and completed much quicker than traditional processes. Clients enter the information directly, greatly reducing the potential for misunderstandings. Additionally, a transaction history is created providing complete transparency into the process. 

By employing a series of automated workflows, a self-service portal can route information to relevant staff, and even create sets of customised documents using the data. The result is greater productivity, flexibility and transparency for both firms and their clients. 

What is Legal Self-Service? 

While the concept of self-service is far from new, it’s paving a new way of working within the legal industry. For years, other industries have tapped into self-service to provide customers with instant access to information or services, allow personalisation, and save valuable time and resources. Take for example, how almost all of your banking needs today can be done via an online portal or app.

When it comes to the legal sector, firms are turning to self-service portals to allow  clients to initiate transactions and meet regulatory requirements. Legal self-service portals present law firm clients with a clean dashboard-type interface, which features a list of forms that can be used to start a new transaction, collect compliance information or provide access to basic legal documents. 

Once a client selects the appropriate form, they are guided through a dynamic questionnaire, which automatically tailors questions based on the client’s previous answers. The information captured on the form can then be used to create tailored sets of documents, which are routed to the firm’s lawyers. From there, lawyers can produce the initial set of transactional documents and continue work on them or save them into a matter folder in a Document Management System. 

The Benefits of Legal Self-Service Portals

The unique benefits of a legal self-service portal lie in the way they leverage workflow automation. Unlike collaboration sites, self-service portals employ customisable workflows to enable lawyers to create transaction-specific documents and make them immediately available to clients through a branded portal.

Automation tools make it easy for lawyers to directly create and update content on the portal using Microsoft Word - without any need for programming. The online forms are created automatically, but can be tailored and adjusted by anyone with a solid understanding of Word and a basic knowledge of websites. 

Individual clients can log into their firm’s portal and be provided with a customised list of forms designed for them, which can be accessed on any device. On completion of a form, the workflow can email a link to the information entered by the users to a lawyer and a pack of customised documents is available for instant use.

Workflows can ensure that only specific, customised questions that are relevant to the transaction, appear on the online form. These are also automatically updated based on the answers clients provide as they progress through the form. If there are exceptions that pop up, they can automatically be routed to a review process, ensuring compliance, speed and accuracy

As well as the workflows that are used to create and route information from clients, the underlying template documents themselves need to be managed and kept up-to-date by the firm. This is done using content creation and management workflows that ensure clients are working with only the most relevant and up-to-date documents.

Creating a Legal Self-Service Portal 

A legal self-service portal can help your firm drive greater efficiency, transparency, and enhanced service for your clients. At Sysero, we leverage our document production and self-service workflow capabilities to help firms develop uniquely branded self-service portals that suit their individualised needs and requirements. We understand that each firm works with their clients differently, so our experts can also help you consider other key factors, including mapping out the workflow journey, creating a consistent client experience, and the desired next steps once a transaction has been completed. 

Want to see Sysero’s self-service workflow in action? You can try your hand at creating an NDA here. Ready to get started? Get in touch with our team to learn more about and discuss creating a self-service portal for your firm. 

The expanding use of automated contract management isn’t surprising, given that time is money for today’s firms. Contract management automation enables firms to increase productivity and get to work quicker for their clients. However, a truly effective automated contract management system requires proper planning and preparation. Before implementing an automated contract management solution, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your contract management process, as well as the requirements and objectives of each stage.

Here, we break down the six essential stages of contract management to help you plan for a successful implementation.

Planning Stage

First and foremost, create a plan. Before you can implement a process, you need to understand your firm’s needs, resources, requirements and objectives. To keep things streamlined, it’s also important to develop processes that can easily be managed and shared across the firm. 

The first step is to draft a contract management strategy - essentially the blueprint for how you plan to flexibility manage company agreements. When drafting your strategy, consider the following:

• What types of contracts - and how many - will you need to manage?
• What agreements are frequently used by lawyers or staff? Hint: these should be the first ones you automate
• Who is responsible for each stage of the contract management process? 
• What are common pain points in the contract management process?
• What resources are required at each stage of the process?

Implementation Stage

Now that the planning stage is complete, you can begin to implement your strategy. This includes selecting the right contract management tool to help you automate and streamline the process. 

A critical component of the implementation stage is to create a centralised contract template database. By storing all of your contracts in a single, centralised location, you’ll significantly improve your staff’s ability to find the contract they need. Accessibility and ease of use is key to driving adoption within the firm. 

For example, contract management tools like Sysero make it easy for lawyers and staff to quickly access and create contracts directly from a client folder or workspace within the firm’s DMS. Assuming your firm is using a modern DMS system like iManage Work 10, lawyers can easily access executed contracts from anywhere, on any device.

Contract Template Creation Stage

Once you have your contract management foundation set up, it’s time to generate new contracts. The key here is to make it as simple as possible for lawyers and staff to quickly create new contracts, whilst ensuring quality and compliance. 

The best place to start is by creating contract templates. With a tool like Sysero, lawyers and staff can easily turn existing contracts into contract templates directly from Microsoft Word. The markup process converts text to fields, provides choices that add or remove clauses as required, and has advanced features for contracts that need to include lists of people, companies and signatories. Once templates have been created and made accessible to the firm, lawyers can quickly create new contracts by filling out an online questionnaire, which can be completed on-line or from within MS Word. 

Negotiation Stage

No matter how much planning and preparation goes into the contract drafting process, there’s almost always a negotiation stage. As redlining begins, a contract management solution can help you keep track of changes and keep the process running smoothly. 

Email and other offline forms of communication can often lead to confusion and costly mistakes, but collaborating with clients through a centralised platform can help boost transparency, trust and confidence. 

Execution Stage

This should be the simplest part of contract management. Yet, for many law firms, obtaining signatures isn’t straightforward - especially in today’s world of remote work. 

E-signatures can help keep business moving by allowing signatories to execute agreements from nearly anywhere. Using a tool like Sysero E-Sign, you can easily route contracts to multiple signatories at once - or in order of precedence - and quickly obtain electronic signatures via mobile devices. 

Post-Execution Stage

At this stage, your contract may be executed, but the process isn’t over. Once contracts are finalised, they need to be stored, filed and made available within the firm. Some e-signing tools enable you to automatically store executed documents in the firm’s DMS for simple archiving and review. For example, Sysero automatically turns executed agreements into a signed PDF document which is emailed to all participating parties and automatically stored within the firm’s DMS once all participants have signed. 

It’s also crucial to perform regular reviews and updates of your contract templates to ensure they stay relevant. An automated quality review workflow can simplify this process by automatically flagging templates for review at specific intervals.

Moving Forward with Contract Lifecycle Management

Contract management doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. Forward-thinking firms are tapping into automation technology to streamline the contract management lifecycle, reduce risk, and foster better collaboration with their clients. 

If you’re interested in learning more about bringing automation to your contract management lifecycle, get in touch with Sysero to schedule a demo. 

Posted 17 November 2020

Over the past several months, law firms around the world have felt the impact of COVID-19, especially as they transition to a new world of remote work. The arrival of the pandemic has pushed firms to reimagine their work environments and think beyond the walls of the office to continue to provide clients with high quality service. 

While moving to more agile, flexible and mobile work practices might seem daunting, there are proven tactics and techniques that can be employed to improve service delivery. One organisation that has mastered service delivery in the world of remote work is iManage. 

iManage, the leading provider of work product management solutions for law firms, corporate legal departments and other professional services organisations, has built one of the most comprehensive set of partners in the industry. The growing iManage network comprises partners from around the globe, all working towards providing iManage customers with enhanced productivity, accessibility and security. 

While the iManage partner network plays an integral role in the company’s growth and performance, the success of its partner network depends on its ability to educate, enable and empower its partners. Over the years, iManage has developed a set of innovative solutions designed to overcome the complexities of collaborating across distributed teams and elevate service delivery to its global partner community. 

Today, iManage relies on three key portals, powered by Sysero technology, to provide its partners with the tools, resources and knowledge they need, when they need it: Partner Portal, Implementation Portal and Cloud Services Portal. The technology portals not only offer partners with on-demand service and support, but also provide law firms with an real-world example of how automation can be used to elevate the service experience. 

Here, we look at how iManage has successfully deployed automation to power its partner experience and share techniques that law firms can replicate to improve their own service delivery. 

Partner Portal: Making it Easy to Access Relevant Resources

For years, iManage’s internal Professional Services team has partnered with leading companies to provide implementation support and customised iManage solutions. During this time, the team has developed a plethora of product information, including sales tools, marketing programmes and other relevant documents. With so much relevant information already available, iManage wanted to find a way to make it easy for its partners to access this information and replicate the success of the Professional Services team. 

To achieve this, iManage teamed up with Sysero to create a customised Partner Portal where partners can quickly and easily uncover information to aid them in their day-to-day work. Using the portal, partners can search for specific information or browse the database for relevant documentation based on predefined criteria. By streamlining knowledge sharing through a single database, iManage has made it easy for partners to access the information they need, without wasting time digging through dozens of different files and systems.

Implementation Portal: Mirroring a Proven Approach

Over the years, iManage has perfected a process for tailoring and implementing iManage solutions for customers around the world, which greatly relies on seamless configuration and successful onboarding. As iManage’s partner network continued to expand, the company wanted to find a way to empower partners to replicate its proven approach and methodology.

To this end, iManage employed Sysero’s workflow automation technology to build the iManage Implementation Portal. Designed from the ground up to meet the needs of partners, the Implementation Portal enables partners to log into the portal, provide information about their project via an online form, and then create customised documentation to aid them in the project. With a quick, simple solution for generating implementation-related documentation, partners can now quickly get to work on projects in accordance with the guidelines set by iManage. 

Cloud Services Portal: Centralised Project Management

More organisations are adopting a cloud-first digital strategy, which means an increasing number of iManage customers are making the move to iManage Cloud. 

Previously, when partners wanted to start a new iManage cloud project, they gathered and shared project details with iManage’s Cloud Services team via email, phone conversations and meetings. This often led to inefficient onboarding and slow project starts. To remedy this, iManage used Sysero technology to build its Cloud Services Portal, a centralised platform for submitting and validating new iManage Cloud projects. Now, to initiate a new project, partners simply complete an online form with the project details, which is then routed to the iManage Cloud Services team. 

The iManage partner network continues to expand and fuel the company’s international growth. Today, more than 3,500 organisations rely on iManage to serve their clients more effectively by improving productivity and governance throughout the creation, sharing and security of work product. As iManage continues to grow and evolve, its Sysero-powered partner portals are poised to grow with it and evolve to serve the changing needs of its partners and customers.

If your law firm is looking to replicate the admirable success of iManage’s partner programme, get in touch with us to learn more about how Sysero technology can help. 

Posted 21 September 2020

For law firms, knowledge management (KM) has been and will continue to be a key competitive advantage. However, changing market conditions, new ways of working and advanced technologies are forcing law firms to rethink the traditional view of KM. 

To prepare for the post-pandemic future, today’s law firms need to redefine how they create, share and manage knowledge to help drive differentiation and efficiency. Faced with leaner staffs, increased competition and hard-bargaining clients, today’s firms are incentivised to streamline processes, whilst finding new ways to stand out in the market.

The 2020 Law Firms in Transition survey by Altman Weil supports this notion

“Many law firms look the same to prospective clients - they do not project a distinct and compelling value that distinguishes them from similar firms. Differentiation is imperative in a highly competitive market like the one we can expect this year and next.”

Yet the survey found that only 55% of firms think their firm is clearly and specifically differentiated. Which begs the question: is having knowledgeable and experienced lawyers enough? The simple answer is no. Today’s firms must be able to promote and share knowledge to maximise lawyers’ potential, stand out in the market, and enable better client service. 

Evolving and innovating KM depends, among other factors, on designing the optimal processes and deploying the right technology solutions. Here, we look at five tips for powering technology-enabled KM to drive differentiation for your firm. 

Align KM to the Needs of the Business

Strategic KM needs to be aligned to your firm’s and your clients’ business objectives. This means, you need to establish a KM strategy that’s connected to your firm’s business strategy in order to provide the know-how and expertise that lawyers require to deliver the best client service. 

Take the time to craft a KM strategy, with input from across the firm, to better understand what knowledge the firm houses and how best to capitalise on it. Keep in mind, that whilst many ideas sound great on paper, they need to be practical to implement in order to have impact. Set goals and priorities for your KM programme, measure the results, and revise as necessary. 

Integrate Know-How and Information

Law firms hold an immense amount of internal knowledge and know-how, including precedents, opinions, documents, and expertise. With knowledge constantly evolving, it’s critical that firms be able to continually update, monitor and share the firm’s collective knowledge. However, it’s not just the knowledge your firm holds that differentiates it in the market; it’s how your lawyers put it into practice.

Technology plays a key role in bringing together disparate knowledge from across the firm and making it actionable for lawyers. Law firms typically have multiple knowledge repositories - including document management systems, customer relationship management systems, and practice management systems. Rather than adding yet another system to house information, strategic KM systems like Sysero enable firms to securely integrate information from their existing systems. For example, Finnish firm Castren & Snellman integrated its knowledge library and document automation systems to create a comprehensive knowledge management system that seamlessly integrates with the firm’s iManage instance. Streamlining and sharing information across systems not only speeds up processes, but also limits the risk of important information falling through the cracks.

Power Sophisticated Searching

Knowledge is only helpful if it can be found when needed. Make it easy for lawyers to uncover the knowledge they need with sophisticated searching capabilities. Modern KM systems, like Sysero, put relevant, up-to-date information at the fingertips of lawyers through a powerful combination of browsing and searching capabilities that deliver an eCommerce-like search experience.

Automate Processes

A proven way to boost operational efficiency is to bring together knowledge and process management to enable lawyers and clients to immediately access the know-how they need, whenever they need it. Many law firms are already using workflow automation to streamline traditionally time-consuming and manual transactional processes. 

Take for example, how Vinge, one of Sweden’s premier law firms, uses its Vinge Dox system to enable lawyers to quickly and easily create new documents directly from the firm’s knowledge library. To create a document, lawyers simply select the type of document they want and fill out a guided online questionnaire. Lawyers also can save more time and control quality by building document packs, which enable them to create a set of documents using the information input into a single form.

As well as maintaining a speedy, consistent approach, Vinge’s KM system supports effective compliance and risk management by embedding data security practices into process workflows.

Select the Right Technology Partner

Strategic KM requires the right technology to connect people, processes and knowledge. It’s about providing lawyers with the ability to quickly locate expertise across the firm, whilst embedding compliance and best practices into every-day processes. 

Sysero’s robust knowledge management system coupled with workflow automation provides a strong framework for capturing, managing and sharing collective know-how and expertise across the firm - wherever lawyers may be working. With remote work on the rise, a modern KM solution needs to work for the mobile workforce, whilst mitigating risk through secure practices. 

With Sysero, you can easily embed compliance and data protection best practices into workflows and processes, effectively standardising data security across the firm. Additionally, Sysero’s cloud-based system makes it easy for lawyers to access know-how, wherever they may be working.

Strategic KM Drives Client Value

A decade ago, KM focussed on work product retrieval and reuse. However, today KM may just be the key to creating a true competitive advantage in the legal market. Modern, technology-enabled KM systems have moved KM from beyond simply searching for information to applying knowledge to deliver quicker, higher quality legal services and increased value for legal clients. 

For more information about how Sysero can help your firm elevate KM, please get in touch with us.

Posted 11 May 2020

In today’s highly competitive legal market and constantly changing regulatory environment, law firms must be able to thoroughly evaluate new business, quickly onboard new clients and ensure compliance at every step of the way. The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and EU Money Laundering Directives has made it imperative for firms to ensure new work meets strict regulatory requirements. While, at the same time, firms are also tasked with driving greater efficiency in the client acceptance process. 

Fortunately, with new automation technologies and digitised client intake solutions, firms can overcome these challenges and implement solutions that not only speed up client intake, but also mitigate risk. 

Challenges with Client Acceptance

At many law firms, the client intake process still relies on manual and time-consuming processes, such as comparing and entering information across multiple systems. This not only creates lack of visibility, but also carries a higher risk of human error. Additionally, firms without integrated technology and automated workflows often rely on email to move the process along, creating the opportunity for key considerations to fall through the cracks. Not only does this expose firms to greater risk, but it also negatively impacts profitability as the firm can’t start work on a case until it’s been properly evaluated and accepted. 

Ways Automation Improves Client Acceptance

Reduces the risk of human error

The more people you have involved in the client acceptance process, the more opportunities there are for error. Automating the process not only reduces the number of people involved, but also improves the reliability and quality of the information that’s collected and evaluated. Additionally, with an automated client intake solution, clients are directly involved in the process of providing and updating their information, reducing the risk of error. 

Streamlines intake and evaluation

Collecting client information and evaluating risk is often a laborious and time-intensive process. However, an automated client intake solution speeds up information gathering through the use of online questionnaires and can be configured to leverage a built-in risk matrix to automatically assess risk based on specified parameters. Any new work that falls outside of requirements then can be routed automatically to a simplified workflow for further assessment.

Furthermore, client information can be shared across other internal systems, such as finance, case management and CRM, which results in considerable time savings and increased quality across all systems.

Increases transparency and visibility

With an automated intake process, law firms can automatically capture and document every step taken, producing a crucial timeline for compliance and quality checks. Rather than relying on a scattering of email, phone and in-person communications to evaluate a new client or matter, law firms can deploy standardised approval processes, ensuring accountability and transparency at every stage. 

Ensures strict and ongoing compliance

As more comprehensive compliance laws and regulations place greater strain on law firms, leveraging automation for client intake makes it easier for firms to ensure compliance. Digital client intake technologies, like Sysero, can be customised to suit the unique needs of the firm to ensure new work meets specific regulatory requirements or ethical considerations. 

For example, top-tier law firm Wikborg Rein recently launched a client intake solution based on Sysero’s workflow platform that automatically checks client data against various public databases and authenticates their identity via a Bank Identifier Code. All of the client data is then stored in accordance with GDPR legislation. The new digital client intake solution provides Wikborg Rein with an intuitive web interface where they can easily register new clients and cases, while ensuring that the necessary information is collected and verified by client and data sources in accordance with current regulations. 

An integrated and automated approach to client intake is well worth the effort and investment. Law firms with automated client acceptance solutions are able to accept more clients, quicker, and with reduced risk. And the sooner firms can onboard new clients, the sooner they can start billing hours and sending invoices. 

To learn more about how Sysero’s workflow automation can improve your client intake process, get in touch with us. 

Posted 12 December 2019

Technology has become embedded in the modern law firm, transforming the way firms operate, communicate, and collaborate with clients. Over the past several years, law firms have put the power of automation to work to transform internal processes, such as document generation. However, looking ahead to 2020, we expect to see firms begin to tap into technology to fuel more innovative models of delivery and create differentiated service solutions. 

Here, we outline three key technologies that we expect to drive change in legal services in 2020.

Digital Onboarding & Business Acceptance

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and EU Anti-Money Laundering directives continue to be a core concern for today’s law firms. Additionally, the growing threat from cybercriminals has placed greater emphasis on the need for data privacy and protection. 

To ensure compliance and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals, today’s law firms must ensure they’re following appropriate compliance and information security procedures and  develop controlled process that can be documented. Unfortunately, this often requires considerable use of internal time, as well as manual operation across multiple, siloed systems. So not only does the manual operation of client onboarding and acceptance result in internal inefficiencies, it also greatly increases risk. 

So how can firms drive greater efficiency in the onboarding process, whilst reducing risk? The answer lies in digitising the onboarding process. Digital onboarding solutions use workflow modeling tools to automate the client onboarding process, streamline risk analysis, and speed up business acceptance. 

Towards the end of 2019, we’ve seen several firms tap into digital onboarding solutions to improve client service. For example, Arntzen de Besche, one of Norway’s most sought-after firms, recently started work on a new digital client onboarding solution that uses a built-in risk matrix to automatically assess a new client against Money Laundering Act requirements. Any client that falls outside the requirements will be automatically routed to a simplified workflow for further assessment to ensure compliance and once approved, automatically created in the firm’s integrated ERP system. 

As the need for compliance and data security continues to mount, we anticipate more firms turning to workflow automation to transform the client onboarding process and ensure compliance protection. 

Client Self-Service Portals

Another way that firms will tap into technology to transform service is through self-service client portals. Legal self-service portals use document workflow automation to enable clients to quickly generate firm-approved documents on a self-service basis. For example, an in-house counsel client may use its law firm’s self-service portal to quickly access an NDA template and easily complete it using an intuitive online form. The template itself would be fully managed by the law firm to ensure it’s up-to-date and includes all relevant clauses. If you’re interested in seeing how it would work, you can visit our online self-service portal demo.

By giving clients the ability to access key documents, whenever they need them, law firms can not only improve client relationships and create service differentiation, but also boost profitability. We’re already seeing more legal clients request this as a service from their firms, so we expect this to be a big trend amongst law firms in the year ahead. 

Contract Creation & Negotiation

As clients demand greater responsiveness from their firms, automated contract creation and negotiation will begin to play a more significant role in service delivery. In the year ahead, we expect to see more firms turn to automation to simplify the drafting of contracts and quicken negotiations. 

Manually drafting new contracts requires a significant amount of time, as does completing the negotiation phase. However, by employing workflow automation, law firms can streamline the contract creation process, speed up the negotiation phase, and get to work faster for their clients. Using document workflow automation, firms can empower lawyers to quickly and accurately generate contracts using an online questionnaire. These contracts can then be routed to signatories - either individually or in order of precedence - by email for review and digital signature. For even greater ease of use, contracts can even be executed via mobile device. 

While automation has already played a key role in transforming law firm operations, in the years ahead, we’ll see more firms adopt the technology to transform the client experience. By running more cost-efficient and responsive systems, law firms will be able to attract a broader set of clients and create differentiation in the market. 

Looking to bring one of these technologies to your firm in 2020? Get in touch with our team to discuss your requirements and options. 

Posted 12 November 2019

Legal automation and the digitisation of legal processes are reshaping the client experience, and in turn, driving a competitive advantage for firms who keep ahead of the technology curve. Today’s clients value - and even demand - greater value and efficiency from their law firms, and they have grown to expect their firms to be as technologically advanced as they are. 

Automation technology not only helps today’s firms operate more efficiency, but it also adds value to the client relationship by powering faster turnaround, increased responsiveness and higher quality service. 

Whether you’re considering document automation, workflow automation or automated client portals for your firm, here are three ways that automation can help improve client service and create a competitive edge for your firm. 

Improve Responsiveness

The 24/7 on-demand consumer culture has seeped into the legal sector, and it’s hard to be perceived as a value-added partner if your response time lags behind client expectations. In fact, the LexisNexis’s Age of the Client Bellwether Report found there’s a big gap between lawyers’ and clients’ views of the services that firms deliver. About 80% of lawyers said they believe their service is “above average”, while only 40% of clients agreed.

One of the main reasons service level doesn’t live up to client expectations is internal bureaucracy. Slow, time-consuming and manual processes consume a considerable amount of internal time and reduces response time.

However, automation can liberate lawyers and legal operations from the burden of manual processes and significantly improve the time it takes to conduct crucial legal processes, including client intake, document generation, and contract execution. Take for example, how Vinge, one of Sweden’s premier law firms, developed a custom document automation workflow that makes it easy for the firm’s lawyers to quickly search for and generate documents directly from within Microsoft Word. By bringing the materials lawyers need closer to them, Vinge was able to significantly reduce drafting time and improve client responsiveness. 

Foster Collaborative Client Relationships

Today’s clients want quality insight and advice, and those firms that establish client relationships built on communication and willingness to collaborate are the ones that will last. Automation plays a key role in creating a collaborative and value-driven relationship with clients. By reducing the amount of time lawyers spend on mundane, repetitive tasks, firms free up their time to spend advising and partnering strategically with clients. 

However, many firms also bringing the benefits of automation closer to their clients to enable a different kind of digital collaboration. For example, a firm might use workflow automation to streamline the contract lifecycle - from automating contract creation and review all the way through to securing e-signatures from clients. When legal automation technology is used to enable better collaboration, it greatly improves the quality of the process and the work product. 

Offer Clients New Services

The legal landscape has never been more competitive, and clients want a differentiated experience - one that’s customised to their needs. Legal automation technology can help law firms expand their service offerings and uncover new and tailored ways of providing individualised value for clients. 

One way that forward-thinking law firms are stepping up the client service challenge is by tapping into the power of self-service legal client portals to enable clients to quickly generate custom legal documents on-demand. These secure, cloud-based legal automation portals are a great way for firms to showcase their advanced automation capabilities, whilst offering a broader range of services that can go a long way in winning and retaining clients. 

The advantages of legal automation are vast, especially when it comes to client service. By embracing automation technology and thinking strategically about how to incorporate it into legal operations, law firms can provide endless client value and secure their staying power in an increasingly competitive market. 

If you’re interested in bringing automation to your firm, get in touch with us. We’d be happy to help you uncover the best way to put legal automation to work for your firm.