Automation may be the way of the future, but the technology is available to law firms like yours right now. Here’s what you need to know about what legal automation is and what it has to offer.
What Is Legal Automation?
Legal automation is a way to get all of the small tasks done automatically without spending too much time or effort on them.
Let’s explain.
In the legal industry, there are lots of small tasks that have to happen every single day. Signatures need to be gathered. Approvals need to be gathered. Legal documents need to be filed. All of these smalls tasks need to happen before lawyers and paralegals can move onto the next, big step. There are two problems with all of these small tasks.
First, most of them don’t require a lawyer to do them.
Second, all of these small tasks quickly add up. So much so that they usually get in the way of larger, more difficult tasks that actually require a lawyer’s attention.
That’s where legal automation comes in. With the help of a quality document management software or web service, you’re able to automate all of your smalls tasks so you can focus on the parts of your job that only you can do.
Good legal automation software can, at a minimum, help you gather signatures, file paperwork, send reminders of to-do tasks to people, and send and receive messages securely. Great legal automation software can help you further by automatically following workflows that you built within the software. That way you don’t even have to think about those tasks. You just get notified when they’re done.
What Is The Difference Between Legal Automation And Document Storage?
You might be wondering if there’s a difference between legal automation and document storage. And there is.
Think of document storage as a stripped-down version of legal automation or document management. Document storage allows you to scan all of your paper documents and store them on an internal server or the cloud. Document storage helps you reclaim your office space by getting rid of all of the paper documents that are just lying around.
Document storage can do a lot of good things for a law firm no matter the size, but legal automation software can do even more.
Document management software solutions designed for law offices can also help you go paperless. But they also automate parts of your filing and work processes. For example. Rubex by eFileCabinet can be taught how to recognize different types of documents. That way, when you upload your documents to Rubex, the software can start filing them automatically for you.
Or if you make a new document in Rubex, you can give Rubex an automatic naming convention. That way, that new document will be labeled correctly from the start. You’ll never accidentally lose a document due to a typo.
And of course, there are the aforementioned automatic features we’ve talked about. Legal automation is so much more than cloud storage, although it does that too. It also helps make sure everything is filed correctly the first time and it helps move the paperwork along for you so you don’t have to spend your time chasing down signatures and approvals.
Legal Automation Won’t Replace Your Job – It Just Makes Your Job Easier
People are always skeptical whenever someone mentions automation in the workplace. And that’s completely understandable. Nobody wants their job to be automated. Especially someone who has taken the time to become a lawyer or a paralegal.
We’re here to tell you not to worry about that. If anything, we’d say legal automation software should make you more valuable at your firm. That’s because management software, like Rubex, helps do all of the work you’re probably overqualified for. It allows you to maximize your time and energy on things that you’d prefer to be doing instead.
Don’t think of legal automation as the thing that wants to take your job, but rather, think of it as your personal assistant who the company hired to make your job easier. No more tedious filing or signature chasing for you. Instead, you can focus on getting the real job you’re getting paid for done instead.
Legal automation software may not be able to get coffee for you in the morning, but it can help you with virtually everything else. Stop wasting your time filing documents and start investing your time in analyzing and using those documents instead.
Legal automation can help you do that.
Rubex By eFileCabinet Can Help You Automate All Of Your Tiny Tasks
The fact is, legal automation is quickly becoming an industry-standard in law firms across the country. Don’t let your law firm fall behind the rest by waiting too long to make the transition to a more efficient, automated system.
If you would like to learn more about legal automation and how it could help your law firm work more efficiently, consider signing up for a free, no-commitment demo. In our demo, we’ll show you all of the ways how you could benefit from legal automation.