In the legal profession, mountains of paperwork come with the territory. Have you considered how automating legal documents for your business could make your piles of digital and physical files a thing of the past?
A Forrester report states that 97% of organizations have minimal or no digital document processes. Switching to modern document automation tools can reduce the administrative burden of your work and give you time to focus on protecting your organization and its assets.
What is document automation for legal departments?
Document automation is a method of using technology to simplify and digitize legal document workflows while adjusting legal clauses for different recipients. It's more than just turning paper documents into digital files. It's about adopting intelligent systems that generate, customize, and distribute business law documents through automation.
10 benefits of document automation for legal departments
Document automation can be a transformative tool for your department. Embracing this technology helps you eliminate unnecessary legal paperwork and realize significant, measurable benefits.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #1: Time and cost savings
Legal professionals and other knowledge workers spend a significant amount of time creating and preparing business law documents. Much of this work could be automated, saving your skilled and costly legal team from handling these tasks.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #2: Simplify contract creation
Contracts are the lifeblood of your department, but are time-consuming and prone to errors. Document automation lets you use technology to generate legal paperwork and complex contracts quickly and accurately.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #3: Improved compliance
Keeping up with changing regulations, updating business law documents to meet current legal standards, and maintaining a clear audit trail can be challenging with manual processes. Automation helps maintain consistency, meet legal requirements, and reduce the risk of non-compliance.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #4: Better accessibility and collaboration
Did you know 80% of professionals need mobile access to corporate documents? A well-implemented document automation system lets your legal team work efficiently from anywhere so they can securely access crucial legal paperwork from an office, home, or courtroom.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #5: Scalability and flexibility
As your organization grows, so do your legal paperwork needs. Manual processes simply can’t cut it when demand increases, leading to backlogs and delays. Scalability is particularly important when you consider that by 2025, the world is expected to store 200 zettabytes of data.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #6: Enhanced accuracy and consistency
Human error is inevitable when manually processing large volumes of legal paperwork. A single mistyped number, outdated clause, or omitted term can have serious consequences. Document automation reduces mistakes significantly by eliminating manual data entry and ensuring consistency across legal paperwork.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #7: Improved client service
With faster document generation and easier access to information, you can respond to client queries more quickly. Increased responsiveness boosts client satisfaction and helps your legal department stand out, potentially leading to increased client retention and referrals.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #8: Better version control and document tracking
Automated systems offer robust version control, so you can track changes, compare versions, and maintain a clear history of document modifications. This is important for legal departments where the evolution of a document is often as important as the final version.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #9: Enhanced data security
Paper documents can be lost, stolen, or damaged. By moving your legal paperwork to digital formats, you gain access to security measures like encryption, access controls, and scheduled backups to protect sensitive information. This is particularly important given the confidential nature of legal documents in business.
Legal paperwork automation benefit #10: Improved analytics and insights
Automated document systems often come with built-in analytics tools. These provide valuable insights into your department's operations, such as identifying bottlenecks, tracking productivity, and highlighting areas for improvement. A data-driven approach helps you continuously optimize your processes.
Implementing document automation in your legal department
Clearly, automating legal documents for your business is a good move. But how do you get started? Here are a few suggested steps:
- Assess your current processes: Identify which business law documents and workflows would benefit most from automation. Focus on high-volume, repetitive tasks that consume a lot of your team's time.
- Choose the right solution: Look for a system that integrates well with your existing tools and meets your specific needs. Consider factors like security, customization, and scalability.
- Train your team: Make sure everyone understands how to use the new system effectively. Remember, the success of your automation efforts largely depends on user adoption.
- Monitor and adjust: Regularly review the system's performance and make adjustments as needed. Automation is not a "set it and forget it" solution — it requires ongoing management and optimization.
The future of legal documentation
The digital world is knocking at your department's door, and it's time to answer. With businesses losing an average of $6 billion per year due to inefficiencies caused by unstructured document management, can your organization afford to lag behind?
By embracing document automation you're preparing your legal department for the future. As legal work becomes more complex and data-driven, having robust, efficient document management processes will be crucial for success.
Don't let inefficient processes slow your team down. Use S-Docs to simplify your legal paperwork and transform your department into a more productive, accurate, and cost-effective operation. Request a demo of S-Docs to see how it can improve your legal department’s efficiency. We look forward to showing you how to take the next step in document automation.
