Note: The content of this article was originally presented at the Ontario Bar Association’s TechXpo, by Clausehound CEO & Founder, Rajah Lehal.
Integrating technology into legal operations, while seeming daunting at first, can prove to be incredibly beneficial - leading to greater productivity and increased efficiency across the board. And as members of the legal profession, it is important that we continue to self reflect, identify and integrate best practices into our workflows.
To reach these goals, below we have compiled 3 (three) ways in which you can easily and effectively integrate legal technologies into your work.
(1) Look for opportunities to automate the small stuff
If you’re having trouble finding something on your desk, and that problem happens every day, it might just require some movement of your desk around to find the objects you’re looking for. The same goes for how you use technology - take the time and map out how you do your work and to look for the bottlenecks. Look for ways to move and deliver text in a way that is better for your own processing.
Ask yourself: How does the existing process work? Can I do the same work in a different way? Why did doing things in an alternative way not work? Why did you not think of looking for that existing tool or feature?
(2) Sacrifice productivity to capture more productivity
Imagine you find yourself in the following situation: None of our software development worked the first time, and in fact, we’ve spent hundreds of hours re-doing work to build the software to its current stage. To combat this, depending on your risk appetite, you can experiment with something new, or develop your own idea. Further, you can look for something that has been rigorously tested. Remember that the workflow might not match your process, but if you can give software a chance, you might find that updating your workflow to match will create a bigger benefit.
(3) Remember that clients are looking for practical solutions
There is more and more competition with automated drafting tools, and clients will be looking for automated solutions. You may already be losing market share on work items that were historically reliable work opportunities, like incorporations and basic wills. At my company, Clausehound, for instance, we were just engaged to review 100 NDAs for a large US investment bank - using both our technology and our team - so the “thinking work” is starting to move towards technology solutions too. It’s a good time to start looking for partners who can provide value to your practice. Pro Tip: Start with something small and “get in the game”, so that you can both start to understand how the software can benefit your practice.
In order to maintain successful business operations and ensure growth, it is important to integrate legal technologies into your daily work. While at first appearing as a momentous task, integrating technologies can be as simple as adopting rigorously tested softwares or taking a more creative route and developing your own ideas. Regardless of the specific route you decide to pursue, continuously (1) look for opportunities to automate the small stuff, occasionally (2) sacrifice productivity to capture more productivity and always (3) remember that clients are looking for practical solutions.
This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not create a lawyer-client relationship with the reader. It is not legal advice and should not be regarded as such. Any reliance on the information is solely at the reader’s own risk. Clausehound.com is a legal tool geared towards lawyers and in-house counsel to automate tedious contract workflows.
Edited by: Priya Datta