Never automate for automation's sake

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 to do so safely).

Having invested in automation software, not automating every single element can feel counter-intuitive – but for many uses cases with complex legal precedents, often a well-developed first draft will be just what the user wants and needs from automation: saving substantial amounts of drafting time by doing the heavy lifting, whilst allowing them to refine and finesse the document more efficiently after generating.

And a long, unwieldy questionnaire which seeks to automate everything and takes a long time to complete can be daunting, increase risk and often discourage adoption – so finding the right balance between what to automate and what to leave is critical.

✅ Knowing what and when to automate comes with experience - let us know if you would like to chat through how best to approach automation and how to find that balance; at BrightDraft we combine years of legal, drafting and automation experience to help you get the most out of your automation projects.