Posted 13 December 2024

As 2024 draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the remarkable strides made in legal technology and share an exciting glimpse into what lies ahead in 2025. For law firms, where efficiency and precision are non-negotiable, these advancements have been transformative. Let’s dive into the highlights from 2024 and explore the innovative solutions coming your way in the new year.

2024 Highlights: Key Milestones

AI-Powered Knowledge Management

This year was the year of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as firms increasingly adopted the technology to enhance services and streamline their operations. One area where we saw significant innovation was knowledge management. 

Earlier this year, Sysero launched our AI-powered knowledge management solution, which integrates ChatGPT and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), seamlessly combining generative large language models (LLMs) with traditional information retrieval systems.

This approach allows lawyers to identify a select number of documents from within the firm’s knowledge base and temporarily provide ChatGPT access to them to cross-reference. Lawyers can then prompt ChatGPT to answer questions such as “what clauses are missing within this document?” or “is this document seller or buyer biased?” or draft new content such as a Material Adverse Clause for a Share Purchase Agreement. To learn more, check out our post on Leveraging ChatGPT for AI-Powered Knowledge Management. 

The Continued Rise of Low-Code/No-Code

This year ushered in a new era of workflow automation with the expanded adoption of low-code/no-code platforms. These intuitive, visual–based platforms make it easy for non-technical users to build their own applications, without the need for extensive IT support. With low-code/no-code solutions, law firms and legal service providers can put the task of application development into the hands of their internal IT support staff and lawyer.

Many firms, like Wedlake Bell, have already proven how no-code workflow solutions can be used to modernise traditional processes and increase efficiency. However, this year saw more firms expand their capabilities through the use of these platforms. Take for example, how Mills & Reeve leveraged Sysero’s low-code platform to successfully migrate from their macro-based template management system to an intuitive cloud-based solution. 

Looking Ahead to 2025

As we look at what’s to come in 2025, the innovations planned for 2025 are just the beginning of a journey to redefine what’s possible in legal workflow automation. Building on the momentum of 2024, where technology drove transformative operational efficiencies, the coming year will see law firms further embrace technological innovation to sharpen their competitive edge. From how AI and automation combine to what is coming down the pipe in the development of diverse technology ecosystems, we’re excited to see what the future holds for legal technology. 

Thank you to all of our customers and partners for sharing in our successes this year, and we can’t wait to see what we can achieve together in the year to come! 

Ready to explore the possibilities? Contact us today to learn more about how our solutions can revolutionise your firm.

Posted 31 August 2024

Today’s law firms are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance services and streamline their operations. In fact, a recent survey found that nearly three in four lawyers (73%) say they plan to utilise generative AI in their legal work within the next year.

One area that’s ripe for AI-driven innovation is knowledge management. Effective knowledge sharing enables lawyers to draw on the collective expertise and experience of the firm, ensure quality legal services and advice, and power greater productivity. By leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT, law firms can boost efficiency by making it easier for lawyers to uncover the knowledge they need, when they need it. 

The Challenges in Knowledge Accessibility 

Most firms today store their knowledge bases within a document management system (DMS), SharePoint depository, or a proprietary knowledge management system (KMS). These systems use metadata, such as document type, author, creation date, tags, etc., to allow users to filter, search and navigate through vast amounts of information efficiently. More advanced KMS applications also support taxonomical metadata, unlimited fields, and employ relevancy search engines. These advanced taxonomies make it easier to manage complex information. They also allow users to uncover information quicker and easier using fewer search terms, while providing context around searches and documents. 

While most modern knowledge bases have robust search capabilities, many lack a natural language interface like ChatGPT. ChatGPT serves as a natural language interface by allowing users to interact with it using plain, conversational language, mimicking human-to-human communication. Imagine asking your KMS to create a lockbox clause for a Share Purchase Agreement and receiving the ideal clause tailored to your specific needs. However, getting ChatGPT to understand your specific purpose can be challenging. While you can provide detailed input to guide content generation, the system's vast corpus of information often requires it to make numerous assumptions, which can result in less accurate answers.

Using ChatGPT to Improve Knowledge Management 

Law firms can leverage ChatGPT to offer their lawyers a more intuitive and efficient method for sharing and discovering information across the firm by pairing with their current knowledge bases. This is achievable through an AI framework called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which combines generative large language models (LLMs) with traditional information retrieval systems. RAG essentially is the process of optimising the output of a large language model (such as ChatGPT), so it references an authoritative knowledge based outside its training data source (such as a knowledge base). 

Using RAG, law firms can employ ChatGPT within their own knowledge bases. This approach involves lawyers identifying a select number of documents from within the knowledge base and temporarily providing ChatGPT access to them to cross-reference. Lawyers can then prompt ChatGPT to answer questions such as “what clauses is this document missing?” or “is this document seller or buyer biassed?” or draft new content such as a Material Adverse Clause for a Share Purchase Agreement. By cross-referencing in-house knowledge documents, RAG can verify facts and provide more reliable information, reducing the likelihood of incorrect or fabricated details often associated with LLMs.

Another benefit of RAG is cost efficiency. LLMs such as ChatGPT charge by the word—both for input and generated words—and for storing the index of your knowledge base. Indexing and storing an entire knowledge base and querying it regularly can be expensive. RAG, however, only sends limited amounts of data into the LLM and retains the index for a short period. While RAG isn’t free, it is significantly less expensive to run than a dedicated chatbot. Furthermore, access to the LLM can be controlled and monitored by the law firm, offering security and auditing benefits.

Bring the Power of ChatGPT to Your Firm

To learn more about applying the natural language capabilities of ChatGPT to improve your firm’s knowledge management, please get in touch with us. 

Posted 4 June 2024

In the fast-paced world of legal services, the adoption of technology is not just a convenience—it's a strategic imperative. Clients are increasingly expecting their lawyers to have technical knowledge and effectively leverage technology tools to deliver more efficient service. By embracing tools like workflow automation, firms can improve overall efficiency, elevate client service, and ensure client satisfaction. In fact, according to a recent survey, almost half of law firms ranked the need to use technology to improve productivity and efficiency as a top need to meet client demands. 

Though law firms and legal professionals recognise the importance of workflow automation and other technology tools, many challenges still arise in driving technology adoption. Here, we explore strategies to overcome these obstacles, so your firm can reap the benefits of legal workflow automation to deliver improved productivity, streamlined operations, and enhanced client service. 

Empowering Lawyers to Leverage Technology 

When it comes to driving technological transformation, one of the biggest challenges law firms face is a lack of knowledge and skills. According to a 2023 Wolters Kluwer survey, about a third of lawyers say they don’t have sufficient skills, knowledge or understanding of how to use legal technology. 

One way that firms are overcoming this barrier is by leveraging low-code or no-code solutions. These intuitive technology solutions use visual interfaces with basic logic and drag-and-drop functionality to enable lawyers and staff to quickly and easily build workflows, without the need for IT assistance. Lawyers can easily and accurately construct custom applications to fit their unique requirements, eliminating the need for extensive training. 

For example, UK-based law firm Wedlake Bell teamed up with Sysero to develop a no-code application to automate and streamline the process of managing supply chain audits. The firm’s lawyers can use the system to streamline the processing of large amounts of data, efficiently carry out important legal checks, and automated inspection reports- all through an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface. 

Providing Customisation & Flexibility

Lawyers often have their own unique requirements and processes, which may deter them from adopting technology that goes against what they are used to. However, using low-code solutions, firms can provide lawyers with user-friendly interfaces and tools, while also having the ability to customise applications to ensure they work in the exact way required. For example, Spoor & Fisher Jersey teamed up with Sysero to build its Sysero Trademark Enquiry Handling Workflow. As a low-code solution, the firm’s internal Database Administrator was able to develop a SQL code that enables the workflow to pull information from across 12 areas of the firm’s IP system to merge into status update email templates. 

Overcoming Security Concerns

When it comes to adopting cloud-based technology, cybersecurity concerns can pose a crucial barrier in driving adoption amongst lawyers and staff. Key concerns often include the risk of data breaches, maintaining client confidentiality, regulatory compliance, and encryption standards. 

To mitigate these concerns and drive technology adoption, law firms should conduct thorough due diligence on providers, ensure robust encryption, and comply with relevant regulations. Take for example, how Sysero’s workflow automation technology enables firms to embed compliance expertise into daily operations, whilst ensuring data is being obtained, managed, and retained in accordance with data protection and retention policies, such as the EU GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act. 

Cloud-based technologies can also be combined with on-premise storage, providing both the flexibility and accessibility of the cloud and the enhanced security of an in-house system. For example, Sysero’s hybrid workflows allow clients to share information with firms via cloud-based workflows and then pull that information directly to an in-house server, where it can be stored safely and securely behind the firm’s firewall. 

Driving True Technology Transformation 

Implementing technology solutions in law firms can be challenging, but the benefits far outweigh the hurdles. By prioritising usability, flexibility, and security, law firms can successfully embrace the future of legal technology. Ultimately, technology can only be transformative for a firm if its lawyers and staff are willing to use it. 

To learn how your firm can successfully implement workflow automation technology, get in touch with our experts. 

As we quickly approach the end of 2022 and the start of a new year, we wanted to take the time to reflect on how Sysero has evolved as a business over the last 12 months. From introducing new low-code/no-code solutions to helping clients make better use of the cloud, we hit some exciting milestones in 2022! With a new year ahead of us, there’s plenty we still have in store to help law firms and legal providers drive efficiency, boost productivity, and deliver exceptional client service. 

Here, we take a look back at some of the major milestones we hit in 2022, as well as preview what’s to come in the new year. 

The Rise of Low-Code/No-Code 

This year ushered in a new era of legal technology with the rise of no-code/low-code platforms. These intuitive, visual–based platforms make it easy for non-technical users to build their own applications, without the need for extensive IT support. With low-code/no-code solutions, law firms and legal service providers can put the task of application development into the hands of their internal IT support staff and lawyers.

To help firms take advantage of the benefits of low-code/no-code platforms, Sysero introduced its Visual Workflow Designer this year, which allows users to automate operational processes by creating custom workflows using powerful flowchart features. The user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy for users to quickly and simply build start-to-finish workflows, without the assistance of IT. 

Customers were quick to adopt the new technology, with London-based law firm Wedlake Bell proving how no-code workflow solutions can be used to modernise traditional processes, increase efficiency, and provide clients with greater visibility with its no-code supply chain workflow solution. As we head into 2023, we can expect to see more firms tap into low-code/no-code solutions to unlock better business outcomes. 

Adapting to the Hybrid Firm

Over the past year, more firms adopted a hybrid working environment, creating the need for more flexible, accessible, and secure technology solutions. An increasing number of firms sought to bring their business-critical workflows to the cloud, without sacrificing data security.  

In response to these modern challenges, Sysero launched its Hybrid Workflow solution, which enables firms to work closer with their clients through the public cloud, whilst maintaining client privacy. Using Sysero’s hybrid-cloud solution, firms can publish forms to the public cloud to easily and securely capture information from clients, and then pull that data to be stored behind the safety of the firm’s firewall. 

Heading into the year ahead, data security and compliance will continue to be a key concern, and hybrid workflows afford firms the ability to collaborate securely with clients on an array of processes and tasks. 

Navigating the Move to iManage Cloud

With the rise of hybrid working, 2022 saw more organisations moving to the cloud to boost agility, increase productivity, and provide a more modern client experience. So, it’s no surprise that as of August 2022, more than 92,000 iManage users had already moved to iManage Cloud. 

While iManage cloud offers firms enhanced security features and greater agility, it also creates the need for iManage applications that adhere to strict security standards. To enable firms to more easily use workflow automation technology as part of their iManage Work 10 cloud instances, Sysero announced it became an iManage Universal application. 

Sysero’s low-code/no-code workflow system seamlessly integrates with iManage Work 10 on-premise and in the cloud to provide iManage users with enhanced productivity capabilities. As more iManage users make the move to the cloud, we can expect an increasing number of firms to turn to Sysero workflow automation to unlock greater potential from their collective knowledge and more efficiently manage knowledge delivery.

A New Look for Sysero 

Last, but not least, Sysero was delighted to unveil a new look in 2022. In June, Sysero launched a new website, featuring a fresh, modern, and mobile-optimised design and also unveiled a new colour-scheme. 

The new website was designed to provide visitors with a more streamlined experience, enhanced mobile capabilities, and easy access to essential information to help them make well-informed decisions about their legal technology. 

What Lies Ahead

With 2022 nearly in the rear view mirror, we’re excited to see what’s to come in the year ahead. Thank you to all of our customers and partners for sharing in our successes this year, and we can’t wait to see what we can achieve together in 2023! Get in touch with us to discuss your 2023 projects and ensure a successful year to come. 

It’s the start of a new year, which is when many of us make resolutions for the year ahead. However, it’s also an ideal time to set some realistic resolutions for your law firm. Last year proved a surprisingly positive year for UK firms, with many experiencing impressive profit growth. One of the biggest challenges law firms faced in 2021 was adapting to new ways of working - from navigating a new hybrid workplace to collaborating with clients virtually. As we head into 2022, law firms have a more solid understanding of how to evolve their firms and more confidence in taking on the challenges that lie ahead. 

Now’s the time to set clear, realistic goals to modernise your firm and prepare to face the year ahead with optimism and clarity. Here, we share five achievable resolutions to set for your firm up for success in 2022 and beyond.

Automate Your Firm 

If you haven’t already invested in legal workflow automation to help streamline your legal operations, this is the year to do so. According to the 2021 EY Law Survey, 76% of legal professionals find it challenging to manage current workloads, and over the next three years, workloads are expected to increase. By investing in workflow automation, you can streamline core legal processes, such as knowledge management, document generation, contract management, client onboarding and service delivery. Through automation, you can significantly reduce the amount of time lawyers spend on repetitive tasks, giving them more time to focus on advising clients and building relationships. 

Legal workflow automation tools like Sysero offer a robust set of features, such as a visual workflow designer, to enable nearly anyone at the firm to design customisable workflows to solve a number of operational challenges.

Move to the Cloud

Over the past two years, more firms have moved toward a hybrid or fully remote working environment. So too, have their clients. In today’s modern office, lawyers, staff and clients alike must be able to easily access business-critical information and applications from anywhere. 

Legal technology vendors like Sysero can provide Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This removes the IT support burden from the law firms by providing managed, cloud-based applications that are designed to grant access to templates, transactions and contracts via a web browser, making them available no matter where your staff or clients are working. Additionally, there’s no need to download additional software. Ultimately, this enables your firm to be more nimble, agile, and efficient when it comes to conducting everyday business.

Sort Out Your Compliance

As we head into 2022, it’s time to automate your compliance and risk management. The year ahead will bring new challenges in navigating the ever-evolving and complex legal and regulatory landscape - and it will be impossible to do so without adopting new technologies. Today’s firms must take a more standardised approach to risk management to create more transparency and accountability. 

By using workflow automation solutions like Sysero to standardise key legal processes, you can embed compliance best practices into every day operations and create clear audit trails. Additionally, you make it easier for staff and lawyers to adhere to compliance policies, even if they are working away from the office.

Standardise your Contract Management

When it comes to compliance, one of the main areas lacking transparency and efficiency is contract management. According to the 2021 EY Law Survey, 69% of legal professionals say their contract creation process isn’t standardised and 71% say their contracts aren’t monitored for deviations from standard terms. This lack of standardisation opens firms up to an array of risks that could be potentially devastating.

Using a workflow automation tool like Sysero, you can automate and standardise the entire contract management process, from initiation and review to e-signing and storing completed contracts in your DMS. By streamlining the contract management process, you can create a digital, secure and efficient contract lifecycle that greatly reduces risk.

Modernise your Business Processes

In 2022, it’s time to bid goodbye to your legacy processes that are no longer fit for use and embrace new technologies to bring your firm into the future. In this modern age, it’s no longer enough to rely on manual processes to conduct key business operations, such as accepting and evaluating new clients and matters or generating documents. Clearly, the way forward for law firms is continued digital transformation, and those that will emerge as leaders will be the ones who embrace new technologies to stay competitive in the market. The question is: will your firm be one of them?

Driving change for your law firm can always be a challenge, but these resolutions are achievable - and critical for your law firm success. At Sysero, we can help you reach your digital transformation goals with our workflow automation technology. Get in touch to schedule a demo or learn more about how we can help you reach your goals this year.

In today’s highly competitive legal landscape, every law firm wants to maximise productivity, improve client satisfaction, and gain a competitive edge. However, many law firms still struggle with optimising legal processes and knowledge. In order to overcome key operational challenges and stay a step ahead of the competition, today’s law firms need to embrace workflow technology and redefine the way they work. 

In fact, according to PWC, one of the biggest challenges for law firms this year has been adapting to new working practices, and their top priorities are improving the use of technology, standardising and centralising processes, and improving legal services. It’s no wonder then, that law firms are turning to workflow automation technology to streamline processes, reduce risk, and ultimately deliver a better client experience. 

Improve Accuracy & Quality 

Documents are a key element of a law firm’s transactional business. However, managing documents can be difficult without the right processes in place and manually updating and managing documents can lead to errors and mistakes. According to recent research, lawyers devote nearly 50% of their time to administrative tasks, such as reviewing and drafting documents and configuring technology. 

By leveraging workflow automation, firms can create a more streamlined approach to document production, whilst simultaneously minimising the risk of human error and improving risk management through standardised processes. 

Maintain Compliance & Reduce Risk

In today’s constantly changing regulatory environment, it can be a challenge to keep up with the latest regulations. However, workflow automation makes it easier for law firms to reduce risk by embedding compliance best practices into lawyers’ daily work. As one lawyer makes a nuanced decision, it can be replicated across the firm and automatically built into document workflows. 

Additionally, workflow tools like Sysero automatically capture and document every step of the process, creating a crucial audit trail for compliance. By standardising and embedding compliance and security best practices into document production, workflow automation can be the key to minimising risk amongst staff working from various locations.

Accelerate Processes and Productivity

Streamlining document workflows can also result in increased productivity and faster turnaround times. By simplifying processes, you can free up more of your lawyers’ time to focus on pressing client issues, while providing more efficient client service. 

Castren & Snellman (C&S), a full-service business law firm in Finland, has significantly improved its lawyers productivity with the introduction of its Signe tool, which uses Sysero’s document workflow automation to streamline the document production process. By leveraging workflow automation to quickly and accurately produce business-critical documents, C&S has been able to shift much of its lawyers’ time from drafting documents to providing added value to clients. 

Enhance Data Security 

Law firms inherently handle a lot of sensitive and confidential information - which if compromised can lead to loss of client trust, significant reputational damage, and hefty fines. The good news is that workflow automation can help keep legal data safe by enforcing data protection policies, including pseudonymisation, data encryption, and data retention policies.   

For example, Sysero’s workflow automation tools can be configured to immediately encrypt client data as it’s entered into a contact form or document field. This data can then be pseudonymized to further safeguard data and mitigate risk in case of a data breach. 

Facilitate Hybrid Working

In the wake of the pandemic, more firms are moving towards a flexible, hybrid working environment. Even legal powerhouse Linklaters has adopted an ‘agile working policy’ that allows employees to work remotely up to 50% of the time. 

While hybrid working comes with many benefits, it does present some key operational challenges - and the key to a successful hybrid working model is mobility and flexibility. Law firms can use workflow automation to make core business processes available in the cloud, such as contract management and document production. Using an e-signing tool like Sysero E-Sign as part of your document workflows can also significantly speed up processes, whilst making it easier to keep business moving forward regardless of where lawyers, staff, and clients may be working. 

Ready to Build Better Processes for your Firm?

Whilst organisations rely on email to conduct their business, information in emails sent over the Internet travels in an unstructured form with minimal security and data management.  The hacking attempts and data breaches that are now part of our daily lives, have led to a far greater interest in data security by even the least tech-savvy lawyers. Digitisating legal matters improves information flow, secures data transfer, provides a transactional trail and mitigates risks.

For digitisation to work, subject matter experts need to be able to map the information, decisions and actions needed for each transaction.  As much as possible the mapping process needs to be completed by those who understand the process with minimal input from technical staff.  Sysero provides tools that help lawyers provide a better way of working with clients. 

How Technology Solves the Problems of Data Capture

To create a legal transaction, firms need to obtain crucial information from clients, which is then used to move the transaction forward - whether through a transactional document or other means. Often, this is done through various rounds of emails, telephone calls, and other collaboration tools. Lawyers can spend an inordinate amount of time chasing, confirming and assembling this information. 

Now, imagine simply sending a client a link to a secure online form where they can easily and quickly provide the information required. The cloud-based questionnaire guides clients through a series of questions, which dynamically update based on their previous responses. This information is then routed to the appropriate personnel, allowing them to use the information to create the required transaction. That’s it - this part is done. 

Unlike blockchain-based digital contracts, which are delivered entirely electronically, digital transactions combine online data collection with traditional document-based contracts. The approach provides a much more efficient and compliant way of working, but it does come with some key requirements. 

1) Ease of Use

The secret to implementing digital transactions is giving non-technical lawyers an easy and intuitive way to capture the information they need. If lawyers can use mail merge, they can easily create and edit forms with Sysero. There’s no coding knowledge required and no additional software needs to be installed on their devices to start building and designing forms. 

If lawyers are obtaining data for a legal document, they can quickly generate an online questionnaire for clients to fill using Sysero’s Microsoft Word plugin and workflow automation. Alternatively, lawyers can generate an information capture workflow directly from Sysero’s intuitive Forms Builder.

2) Built-in Compliance

The other crucial element of digital transactions is compliance. A core part of EU and UK GDPR is securely storing personal data and not retaining it for any longer than it’s needed. Sysero allows you to create custom data retention policies to govern how and when data is erased.

Building digital transactions with Sysero also gives you the ability to choose which data fields to encrypt and provides enhanced data security capabilities such as anonymisation and pseudonymisation. This ensures that even if your data falls into the wrong hands, it won’t have any identifying characteristics associated to it. These data security best practices greatly reduce the risks associated with data processing, while also maintaining the data’s utility.  

Ready to digitise your firm?

Early adopter firms that are using workflow automation to manage transactions digitally have already gained a massive competitive edge. 

• Accelerating transactions: Law firms using digital transactions are accelerating transactional processes by avoiding the time-consuming and laborious task of manually collecting information and creating transactional documents
  
  
• Mitigating risk: By using a secure, cloud-based form to capture information directly from clients, firms are ensuring accuracy and compliance.
  
  
• Enhancing collaboration: With greater transparency into the transactional process, clients know exactly what information is being shared and how.

To learn more about how digital transactions can benefit your firm, get in touch with us. 

It’s safe to say that the legal industry has never seen a year like 2020. In what was an unprecedented year for UK law firms, with new challenges arising from the pandemic and Brexit, one thing has been made abundantly clear: law firms must embrace change. 

The events of the past 18 months have shown that change is inevitable in the legal sector. In the past few years, law firms have struggled with how to ensure sustainable growth, create differentiation and make the right technology investments. However, the arrival of the pandemic quickly forced firms to adapt and evolve by transitioning to new ways of working. 

While lockdown restrictions are eased, offices reopen and people return to work, the survival of firms depend on their ability to refrain from slipping back to old ways of working. The legal landscape has been forever changed, and law firms must adapt to a more agile way of working, or risk being left behind. 

What’s Driving Change

Today’s firms face significant economic stress and uncertainty, thanks in large part to the pandemic. According to recent research by PwC, more than 80% of Top-100 law firms are concerned about meeting their financial obligations in the period to 2022. We’ve already seen many law firms in the UK respond to the pressures with redundancy rounds, staff cuts and partner deferrals. 

Adding to the financial pressures brought on by the pandemic, firms are also now navigating a seismic shift in client expectations. When the world transitioned from office-based work and traditional business processes to more agile, flexible ways of working, clients’ priorities changed. Now, clients are looking to their firms to deliver innovative, technology-driven legal services that provide enhanced flexibility and value. 

It’s a telling sign that the top three priorities for law firms over the next 12 months are: improving the use of technology; standardising and centralising processes; and improving legal service offerings (PwC). Heading into the year ahead and beyond, today’s firms have the opportunity to step outside their comfort zone and drive real, differentiated change. In fact, they may have to in order to survive in the new legal landscape. 

Three Main Areas for Driving Change

While embracing new ways of working in a law firm isn’t always simple, there are some key areas in which to focus. 

Improving Legal Service Delivery

Strong client relationships are increasingly important for the modern law firm. Coming off of a year defined by agility, today’s legal clients want greater flexibility, value and transparency from their legal providers. Clients are looking to their legal partners to be just that - partners. In fact, according to the State of the UK Legal Market 2021 report, nearly half of corporate clients (47%) say that the main way firms can bring more value is to commit to a longer-term partnership. 

So, how can lawyers spend more time with their clients? Simple: reduce the amount of time they spend on mundane, repetitive tasks. Adopting document and workflow automation technology can help lawyers optimise their processes to be more efficient, giving them more time to focus on building client relationships. 

Law firms can also take document and workflow automation technology one step further to offer clients around-the-clock service. Innovative firms are already using self-service client portals to give clients the ability to quickly and easily generate firm-approved documents on-demand. These cloud-based portals afford firms the flexibility to serve clients in a remote environment, while also creating service differentiation and boosting firm profitability. 

Modernising Business Processes

As firms struggle to overcome fresh financial challenges, the need for automation and standardisation has never been greater. Many law firms still have legacy processes in place that are no longer fit for use. For example, firms which continue to rely on manual processes to accept and evaluate new clients and matters are much more likely to operate less efficiently than a firm using modern technology to support these processes. 

With workflow automation, firms can simplify and accelerate many common business processes. Wikborg Rein’s digital client onboarding solution is a great example. To comply with the Money Laundering Act, as well as data protection laws, Wikborg Rein support staff used to spend a considerable amount of time manually assessing new clients and cases before accepting them to the firm. However, the firm recently transitioned to a new digital client onboarding solution, developed in collaboration with Sysero and PSA Consulting. 

The new digital onboarding system uses Sysero’s workflow technology to power intuitive web-based acceptance forms where new clients and cases can be registered. Once the necessary information has been collected, it’s automatically assessed and verified against public registers and databases. The client’s identity is also authenticated through their Bank Identifier Code. Any client or case that falls outside the requirements is automatically routed to a workflow for further assessment to ensure compliance. Once approved, the new client and case are automatically created in the firm’s integrated internal systems.

The digital solution has empowered Wikborg Rein to transform client intake from a set of disparate and onerous tasks to a streamlined, quality-driven and comprehensive cloud-driven process. With faster acceptance and high quality evaluation, the firm can onboard more clients and get to work faster. 

Adopting New Technologies

Clearly the way forward for the modern firm is digitalisation. While the pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation, firms must continue to embrace new technologies to stay competitive in the market. 

Law firms can use workflow automation to streamline a number of different processes and make them available in the cloud, including business acceptance, contract negotiation, document generations and legal service delivery. With cloud-based applications, lawyers, staff and clients can access critical programmes and processes through their browser, without having to download applications on a physical computer. Ultimately, this provides for a more nimble, agile and efficient way of working.

Despite the challenges ahead, law firms have the opportunity to drive positive, lasting change and pave the way for a brighter future. Those firms that build upon the agility they’ve built over the past several months and embrace the innovation needed to outperform their competitors are the ones that will ultimately prove to be successful. 

To learn more about how Sysero’s technology can help your firm improve client service and accelerate digitisation, get in touch with our team.