It is no surprise that businesses rely on technology to streamline their operations and improve efficiency. One area where technology has made significant progress is in legal document generation. Like pulling teeth or squeezing lemon on a paper cut, manually creating legal documents has long been a painful effort. It’s incredibly time-consuming due to how high the stakes can be for contracts and agreements, but also error-prone. However, automated solutions like S-Docs have modernized this task, making it faster, more accurate, and compliant with legal standards.
What is document generation for legal departments?
Document generation for legal departments refers to the process of creating contracts, agreements, and terms & conditions that comply with legal requirements. Legal document generation is necessary for all organizations of all sizes and can be completed manually or using automation.
Key elements of a legal document agreement
Forward-thinking legal departments that want to adjust for today’s customer and organizational needs apply several key elements to each legal document agreement to make sure they are legally sound and enforceable. These elements include:
- Parties Involved: Clearly identify all parties involved in the agreement.
- Terms and Conditions: Define the rights and obligations of each party.
- Effective Date: Specify when the agreement takes effect.
- Signatures: Ensure that all parties sign the document to confirm their consent.
- Clauses: Include standard clauses, such as confidentiality, dispute resolution, and termination clauses, to protect your interests.
Best practices for automated legal document generation
Many of these elements can be easily implemented using automated legal document generation tools — but you must follow best practices to ensure your tool closes all the gaps in your legal process. To comply with laws and regulations and maximize the benefits of automated legal document generation, consider the following best practices:
Standardize sensitive documents
One of the most effective ways to guarantee compliance is to standardize your sensitive documents within your automation tool. By using templates that include all the necessary legal language and clauses, you can minimize the risk of omissions or inconsistencies. Standardized templates also make it easier to update documents as laws and regulations change.
With a legal document automation solution, you can also build a library of standard clauses that can be inserted into multiple templates. Whenever a standard clause needs to be updated, you only have to do it once to see your edits reflected across all of your legal documents.
Automate reproducible documents
The best candidates for legal document automation are the contracts and agreements you use repeatedly and regularly. These can easily be templated to reduce human error and speed the document generation process. They are the easiest place to start when applying automation to your processes — if you’re sending some of these agreements several times a day, it shaves a ton of time off your team’s workload.
Apply the principle of least privilege
When setting up your document generation system, apply the principle of least privilege by granting users the minimum level of access necessary to perform their tasks. Limiting access to sensitive information helps protect against unauthorized changes so only authorized personnel are creating or modifying legal documents.
Secure document storage and management
Securely storing and managing your legal documents is necessary for compliance. Use encryption and access controls to protect sensitive information, and implement a document management system to track changes and maintain version control. This guarantees that you always have access to the latest version of each document and can easily retrieve historical versions if needed.
Ensuring compliance with legal standards
For full compliance with legal standards, it's important to consider several additional factors beyond the technical aspects of document generation.
Deploy automated legal document generation solutions
Automated legal document generation solutions like S-Docs play a significant role in creating compliant content. These tools are designed to incorporate all relevant legal standards and best practices, making it easier for you to generate compliant documents. By deploying a reliable solution, you can streamline your document generation process and reduce the risk of non-compliance.
Conduct regular audits
Conduct periodic reviews of your legal documents and generation processes to identify any areas of improvement or potential risks. Audits help you stay ahead of regulatory changes so your documents remain compliant over time.
Run team training
Investing in team training is crucial for compliance. Training helps keep your staff well-versed in using automated legal document generation tools and reinforces the importance of adhering to legal standards. Regular training sessions can help keep your team up-to-date with the latest best practices and regulatory requirements.
Implement data security measures
Implementing robust data security measures is vital for protecting sensitive information and maintaining compliance. Your document generation system should include security and compliance benefits like encryption, access controls, and other security protocols to safeguard your data. This protects against unauthorized access and makes sure that your documents remain confidential and secure.
Customize your instance
Customization options allow you to tailor your document generation system to meet your specific needs. Create standard clause libraries to maintain consistency and guarantee that your documents include all necessary, most up-to-date legal language.
Automated legal document generation with S-Docs
Document automation serves as a reliable and productive copilot, helping you streamline the generation of legal documents and making sure you comply with legal standards. Solutions like S-Docs can streamline your processes from start to finish, making every step as smooth as possible. Ready to take automation to the next level? Request a demo of S-Docs today.
