Picture this. The volume of legal work is gradually increasing, as indicated by the Legal Department Operations Index 2022. Over half (52%) of respondents reported an increase in legal matters being handled in-house.
In-house legal teams are likely dealing with multiple legal documents from colleagues across the business in any given week. These documents may even originate from outdated templates that do not comply with the latest regulations.
If only there were a standard legal operational process within your organisation that made legal document creation seamless. You’re looking for consistency and have a desire to eliminate bottlenecks on the approval side.
Does this sound familiar? Document automation can help solve not just the problem of outdated document creation but other critical challenges for legal departments. Here are the top three most common problems that document automation eliminates for legal teams:
1. Document creation is a burden on team resources
Creating, reviewing, or sharing documents is an integral part of the legal team’s daily workload. Document automation software can streamline the end-to-end process that begins with routine document creation. The document creators can generate a wide range of drafted legal documents. Think contracts, agreements, and legal briefs, in an approved layout with consistent terms aligned with the business’ risk profile. Eliminating the repetitive tasks of generating similar legal documents for projects allows the legal team to focus on strategic work.
2. Errors can cost the business financially
Errors in document creation can put your organisation at risk of regulatory penalties for compliance breaches. They can even harm brand reputation. Document automation enables you and your stakeholders to:
- Adopt standard clauses and risk positions
- Define key parameters for each document type
- Stay up to date with the latest policy, legal or regulatory developments relevant to the document
Standardised templates empower legal teams to generate documents with standardised language across the organisation. This takes place within approved parameters and reflects the brand’s style and layout. Besides improving productivity, this reduces risk exposure, ensuring both compliance and consistency. It is a more cohesive way for internal stakeholders to work with the legal team.
3. Version control is chaotic, and there’s lack of visibility
Without a centralised repository of templates for creating new documents, departments will use whatever documents they have access to. These may include non-standard terms which might have been previously agreed for a previous deal or client. When stakeholders send outdated documents to the legal team, it requires a considerable amount of time and effort to review them.
In addition, legal departments are burdened by managing multiple versions of the same document. Document automation software can help with maintaining updated document templates repository securely with version control. This further ensures all departments use the latest templates.
Dynamic dashboards with multiple views offer legal departments complete visibility into different versions of a document. Tracking every change has never been easier with document automation.
Some added benefits for you
Besides enhancing productivity, minimising expensive errors, and mitigating risk, document automation allows legal teams to focus on more complex work. The reporting across all levels facilitates better departmental coordination and reduces the time and expense associated with routine legal work. This further enables legal departments to demonstrate their value to the wider organisation.
How can document automation solve your legal team’s challenges? Discover HighQ’s document automation capabilities today.
