The What and Why of Document Automation
Is your legal practice still writing letters instead of sending email? Are you still using word processing programs to draft contracts? For sure, the answer to the first question is a resounding “no;” however, the answer to the second question is more likely “yes.” Therein lies the problem: your practice gladly stopped writing and snail mailing cumbersome letters for automated email functionality with its instantaneous send and receive, but the migration to document automation is slower.
That’s why it’s important to understand the what and why of document automation. Thomson Reuters Contract Express pushes your legal practice in the right direction with improved workflow efficiency, consistency, compliance, accuracy, mitigated risk, speed, less spend, fewer bottlenecks, and creation of high-quality work product.
Now that we’ve addressed the why of document automation, let’s explore the what.
First and foremost, customers of Thomson Reuters may realize our products nicely integrate to enhance and streamline workflow. You’ll see Practical Law Automated Documents powered by Contract Express alongside Drafting Assistant that help build your documents. Rather than offer you one dimensional software, we offer a suite of solutions that communicate, integrate and automate so your practice can realize the aforementioned benefits, and more.
Document Automation is Not New
It’s true, document automation is not new. It’s been around since the ‘90s while Thomson Reuters Contract Express is more than 10-years-old. Along the way Thomson Reuters Contract Express has been improving parallel and sequential workflows and how lawyers, knowledge management and IT collaborate to bring legal practice into the 21st Century.
Consider how you and your legal practice assemble and execute NDAs, lease agreements, due diligence reports, incorporation documents, consultant agreements (and much more). Is any of that automated…and why not?
When you choose Contract Express, here’s what happens:
Templates are created and approved by leadership in collaboration with lawyers, IT and extended teams. Risk is mitigated when laterals or new hires come on board and compliance is no longer in question.
A powerful questionnaire drives step-by-step document creation with more accuracy and less risk (notice the repeated elimination of risk?). Rather than manually adding names and addresses multiple times (with high margin for error), the patented Contract Express engine collects one answer to a series of sequential questions then populates it throughout the document regardless of whether it’s five pages or 600.
What’s the Workflow in Your Legal Practice?
Imagine for a moment how your legal practice works. How many lawyers, paralegals, associates, assistants, and knowledge management professionals touch your legal documents? Now compute how much time each is spending to ensure accuracy for documents. Finally, think about the software being used to deliver a timely document.
Here’s what may be happening in your organization: workflow is not efficient; lawyers and extended teams spend too much time manually touching every page of a document; multiple departments review a draft sequentially and not in parallel; errors repeat that draw out the process. Contract Express can alleviate ALL of that.
Lastly, every single corporation and law firm must compete. Competition may mean different things to different people, but one thing is for sure: being able to successfully compete to earn new business or sell more products begins with workflow efficiency no matter where you work.
It’s time to reward your in-house legal department or law firm with the gift of Thomson Reuters Contract Express. If you’re already using Practical Law, the next logical step is Contract Express to take your exemplar documents and templates to the next level. Get in touch with your Contract Express representative today to learn how our Thomson Reuters solutions integrate and set up a demo or get a free 28-day trial of Contract Express. Reach us at contractexpress-support@tr.com.
Contract Express is a Thomson Reuters enterprise, web-based solution trusted by the world’s leading law firms and corporations for automation of legal document assembly.
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