Are you keen to get your precedents automated but wondering how to scope your projects? This is often the area where we find hesitation and uncertainty around what’s needed, with projects getting stuck. In fact, the automation process essentially mirrors the drafting process that you go through in your mind every day as a lawyer: the logic flows are the same. As a starting point, think about the questions you would need to ask yourself if manually drafting a document from scr

Document automation Thought for the Week: never automate for automation’s sake. ✅ Always understand what end users really need, and how automation can drive the most efficiencies through automating content options and populating information fields. ✅ Think about whether an end user will really know the answer to an automated question at the usual point in a matter where they will be completing the questionnaire and generating the document (and/or has enough commercial context

Key to successful document automation is building products which end users will enjoy and benefit from: something which leaves them thinking “That was so intuitive, I can trust that product, it really helped me, it’s almost like it was reading my mind”. How can you best get to that endpoint? ✅ Understand how the drafting in the relevant precedent flows and build your automation around that structure ✅Work with the team to scope automation that works for them and always ask “W

Document automation Thought for the Week: attention to detail is key Critical to adoption of document automation is end user trust in the automated products. In law firms and legal departments, automated precedents will live or die by whether end users can enjoy the process and trust the content outputs from day one. Does this automated precedent make my life easier? Can I trust it? Does it help with the fine-tuning of drafting that will save time and help me provide a top se

We're passionate about document automation and other efficiency tools for one simple reason: personal experience. 🟩 We practised law for many years – always very rewarding but the time available for complex drafting can often be limited by the timescales for a transaction. 🟨 Like when you’re trying to draft a 300 page facility agreement at midnight, or turn a complex share purchase agreement and multiple ancillaries in time for completion the next morning - often drawing co

Are you investing time and resource into AI innovation but need more time to assess and demonstrate tangible efficiency gains or use cases? It’s completely understandable and something we’re seeing across the market, and so it’s worth trying to articulate some points to consider. New and emerging products will always need refinement and iterative improvement, often making it hard at first to demonstrate tangible, economic returns to management who, whilst supportive, also hav

Legal precedents and styles aren’t “set and forget” – they’re some of the most dynamic documents in practice. And if your drafting tools can’t cater for market and legal developments, they’re adding risk – not reducing it. After practising for many years as a corporate lawyer - and later being responsible for drafting and maintaining precedents, I know first hand how dynamic precedents and styles can actually be. I’ve seen how “approved wording” can become outdated and how up

Most firms possess a wealth of automatable documents, even where they rely on third party resources for their core legal precedents. Because many firms use external know‑how providers rather than maintaining a full in‑house precedent bank, it’s easy to assume there’s nothing internal worth automating. But in so many firms we’ve worked with, we have found high-impact automation opportunities within documents that firms use every day. For example: ➡️ Engagement letters: multipl

When implemented effectively, document automation generates substantial commercial benefits for law firms and in-house legal teams. But...

Document automation remains a widely untapped efficiency resource for lawyers. Why is this, and what can we do about it?