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Starting your Automation Project with a Bang

Starting your Automation Project with a Bang

As you may have read in one of our Industry Insights articles, it doesn’t matter if you are from the US, Latin America, Europe or Asia, the documents that end up being selected for automation are often the same – or very similar. Based on our long-term experience with over 100 000 users in 5 continents, we know that while the specific documents that you will automate depend largely on the size of your firm, and the type of work you do, there are a lot of similarities. In another recent article, we discussed why steps to take when starting your automation process, and in yet another, calculating ROI for your automation project.  

But it’s still possible to understand automation as a bit of an abstract activity until you start to get your hands dirty. Here, we’ve selected three documents from our list, and combined them with our thoughts regarding steps you can take to make your automation successful, and provide some reasons why these documents make such good candidates for automation, or even for a first automation. 

 

The ground rules: 

For your first document, whatever you choose should:

  • Brings good value from automation 
  • Be content that your SMEs are very familiar and comfortable with
  • Be content that SMEs can help you mark up 
  • Documents should be standardized and approved with consistent styling 
  • Documents should be reviewed beforehand to determine if multiple related documents may be logically combined into a single automated template.

Document Example 1:

h
Engagement letter

No matter your business, when you sign up clients, you need to document what you will do for them, how you will bill them, what you will not do, and what they can expect. Engagement letters are the bread and butter of law firms. You draft a lot of these. This makes them good candidates for automation because they are simple (there are likely 4-6 options in the document at most), bring value to the firm, and your producers/sales/managing attorneys can easily help you identify the flow of automation markup as to scope of work, rate, and any time terms necessary. These are probably the most often reviewed documents that leave your company as well.

Document Example 2:

h
Real Estate Agreements

They are on the other side of the legal document spectrum, but no less good candidates. They are large, complex, and highly valuable, but still include a series of clauses that can be automated, and relatively few options; including seller, buyer, physical property location, price, and any relevant payment schedules. In this case however, a Document Automation/Contract Lifecycle Management tool really comes into its own with the relevant attachments for each deal – property descriptions, inspection reports, any build-out plans, etc. can all be digitized and included easily.

Document Example 3:

h
Master Services Agreements/Scope of Work

Not to leave the non-lawyers out of our set of examples, MSA/SOW documents are some of the most common in IT, research and other fields, and govern the most important terms of ongoing relationships. Again, these are important to the business, and beyond the key time, price, etc. terms, contain a significant quantity of pre-approved/pre-reviewed language. SMEs (the producers themselves) are ready at hand to answer questions as to automation/templatization as necessary.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our examples of documents that are good candidates for your first automation project. Want to know more about how Legito handles these automation projects? Contact us here to request a demo of our Smart Document Workspace.

As you may have read in one of our Industry Insights articles, it doesn’t matter if you are from the US, Latin America, Europe or Asia, the documents that end up being selected for automation are often the same – or very similar. Based on our long-term experience with over 100 000 users in 5 continents, we know that while the specific documents that you will automate depend largely on the size of your firm, and the type of work you do, there are a lot of similarities. In another recent article, we discussed why steps to take when starting your automation process, and in yet another, calculating ROI for your automation project.  

But it’s still possible to understand automation as a bit of an abstract activity until you start to get your hands dirty. Here, we’ve selected three documents from our list, and combined them with our thoughts regarding steps you can take to make your automation successful, and provide some reasons why these documents make such good candidates for automation, or even for a first automation. 

 

The ground rules: 

For your first document, whatever you choose should:

  • Brings good value from automation 
  • Be content that your SMEs are very familiar and comfortable with
  • Be content that SMEs can help you mark up 
  • Documents should be standardized and approved with consistent styling 
  • Documents should be reviewed beforehand to determine if multiple related documents may be logically combined into a single automated template.

Document Example 1:

h
Engagement letter

No matter your business, when you sign up clients, you need to document what you will do for them, how you will bill them, what you will not do, and what they can expect. Engagement letters are the bread and butter of law firms. You draft a lot of these. This makes them good candidates for automation because they are simple (there are likely 4-6 options in the document at most), bring value to the firm, and your producers/sales/managing attorneys can easily help you identify the flow of automation markup as to scope of work, rate, and any time terms necessary. These are probably the most often reviewed documents that leave your company as well.

Document Example 2:

h
Real Estate Agreements

They are on the other side of the legal document spectrum, but no less good candidates. They are large, complex, and highly valuable, but still include a series of clauses that can be automated, and relatively few options; including seller, buyer, physical property location, price, and any relevant payment schedules. In this case however, a Document Automation/Contract Lifecycle Management tool really comes into its own with the relevant attachments for each deal – property descriptions, inspection reports, any build-out plans, etc. can all be digitized and included easily.

Document Example 3:

h
Master Services Agreements/Scope of Work

Not to leave the non-lawyers out of our set of examples, MSA/SOW documents are some of the most common in IT, research and other fields, and govern the most important terms of ongoing relationships. Again, these are important to the business, and beyond the key time, price, etc. terms, contain a significant quantity of pre-approved/pre-reviewed language. SMEs (the producers themselves) are ready at hand to answer questions as to automation/templatization as necessary.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our examples of documents that are good candidates for your first automation project. Want to know more about how Legito handles these automation projects? Contact us here to request a demo of our Smart Document Workspace.

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