Law firms differ in a number of ways in their specialised areas of knowledge, whether they operate on a national or global level and the size of the firm. But despite their differences, all firms face the challenge of having multiple manual processes which cause their fee earners to be less efficient and in turn prohibits them from making more money. The legal industry has always been slightly behind the curve on modernising the way they operate, with traditional methods of working still largely powering their business.
Retaining Knowledge
“Knowledge is Power” - Sir Francis Bacon
When an individual makes the commitment to practice law, they make the decision that they will be studying for between five and seven years. The individual then enters the workforce as a trainee, where they spend a few years gaining experience and learning to understand the firm and its customers. Considering the time required to get to this stage, it is crucial that these individuals, and more importantly their knowledge, is not lost. Companies can put solutions in place for their employees to remain engaged, but how do they retain the knowledge?
Firstly, you need to make sure you have the correct knowledge / document management solution in place. Industry favourites for these solutions include iManage or SharePoint. The platforms should have a strong search functionality behind them so that data is easily discoverable; although with every good system, the data is only ever as good as what is put in.
This is where modernising the ways that people work plays its part. For a system to be used, you need to ensure that it is part of a fee earner’s day to day life. Process automation does not solely relate to workflows (although automating the manual processes will be a huge benefit for firms!).
Lawyers will have a number of standard documents which they use every day and could be turned into templates such as:
- Contracts
- Client forms
- Emails
- Introductions
- Update emails for clients at each stage of their case
- Quotes
There are tools which can create these templates and start workflows which ensure they are stored in a centralised place for the whole company to review. The obvious benefit to this solution is that it reduces the time lawyers need to spend on mundane data creation and increases their billable time with their clients. The workforce will become considerably more efficient, and in a less obvious but equally important benefit, individuals are more likely to be engaged with the firm as they are spending more time doing the part of the job they love, instead of arbitrary admin tasks.
Compliance and Regulations
Due to the nature of the industry, law firms tend to have large volumes of paper around the office, in people’s homes and for clients to sign. This means there is a risk that personal and corporate data might be lost or stolen. With the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018, companies and partners of the firms can now face huge fines for mishandling data.
Considering the above, firms are now trying to move towards becoming a more paperless workforce. Other benefits of a paperless world which need to be considered include:
- Processes will be more efficient as robotic automation can be implemented to speed up the standard “lifecycle” of the document
- All data is tracked and classified and therefore the risk of being fined is reduced
- If the firm is audited by a client or auditor, the firm will have less concerns about compliance if they are able to demonstrate in a timely manner the automated processes around the classification and journey of their data
- Clients will receive a better service as they can complete tasks like forms or signature of documents directly from their device (laptop, tablet or mobile phone)
- When considering the current global impact of Covid 19, clients and even fee earners may not have printers or scanners at home. These devices would not be required if the process is electronic for all parties
The true goal is to modernise the workforce for the benefit of both the employees and the clients while ensuring they remain compliant.
Intelligent Tasks and Reporting
Robotic Process Automation is not necessarily designed to reduce the number of tasks an employee will complete on a day to day basis. Instead, the tooling allows for your highly-skilled employees to focus on more “intelligent” tasks.
From an operational perspective, fee earners are hired to perform analytical services and represent your clients the best they can. Their time, and money spent on paying salaries, is not best used on them sending out templated documentation and emails. If required, you can also start to look at reducing team sizes as the workforce will be operating more effectively.
The less experienced members of your team will start to upskill more rapidly as they won’t need to focus on the “donkey work”. The development and growth of these individuals will only positively impact the business, and the happiness of these employees will also lead to an improved reputation of the firm, as word spreads fast in the legal industry.
So, how do we measure all the positives mentioned above around elements such as improved efficiency? The tools which have the functionality to assist firms in the ways described also have inbuilt reporting mechanisms. The reporting available will be able to present information on where the lawyers’ time is now being spent, and how much time is being saved due to the automated processes which have been implemented. The tooling also has architectural intelligence (AI) to suggest ways of improving processes on its own once it has learnt your environment.
How can Core help?
Core is a Nintex Gold partner and has the skill set to help with the planning, implementation and ongoing support of different robotic automation processes.
Nintex puts process automation in the hands of businesses, giving them the power to automate, manage and optimise business processes, quickly and easily. Organisations using Nintex can visually plan and map out the processes they want automating, identify and build ideal candidates for automation and optimise this based on data collected during automation
Find out how Core and Nintex can help bring your business process automation to life with intelligent solutions.
