Partners and investment committees often have the final say in taking the plunge to invest in an automated solution, but they’re rarely the technologists that scope and test the software. We spoke to the people responsible for rolling out document automation to find out how to make it a success. Visit our new drafting solutions site to find out more.
Saran Kaur is a document automation consultant at Linklaters, training authors internally and automating documents for the Asia region relating mainly to corporate and banking.
Robert Lankester led an automation programme at Irwin Mitchell that launched 250 documents in its first year. He is now document automation manager at Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP).
Simon Cheung is a senior legal technologist at Ashurst. He works to bridge the gap between lawyers and IT by understanding and communicating technological capabilities to lawyers.
How does the client experience affect the way you buy and use automation tools?
Saran: We were early adopters of Contract Express in 2001. We started using automation in our banking team internally and created several client-facing automation products. While we have continued to develop more automation solutions since then, the last two years have seen a marked increase in the adoption of document automation across the firm. With clients demanding ‘more for less’ and the increase in the number of mentions of Document Automation capabilities in RFPs there is more pressure to continue to deliver legal transactions efficiently for our clients.
Simon: The client user experience is absolutely key. First impressions are lasting, so we have to keep their queries and questions in mind. Automation is a new way of working for many people so it is important to show them and explain how it works in practice. The client user experience is always at the forefront of our minds.
Robert: Clients are at the heart of every decision we make, though efficiency was obviously a driver too. There’s interest in presenting automation directly to clients and letting them fill out the forms themselves. I’m confident we’ll be doing something specifically client-facing with automation in the near future.
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