Year on year, cost saving retains its spot as a top agenda item in many law firms, and yet technology isn’t fully leveraged to achieve this goal. Automation is no new revelation, and yet many tasks that robots can easily do are allocated to junior and administrative staff.
Why wouldn’t you automate these?
Let’s look at some day-to-day tasks that are ripe for robotic automation. Every time your firm takes on a new case, an individual opens a matter file that involves client onboarding and verification, conflict and risk assessment, file and data setup, and so on. The automated robots in your case management system could trigger instant file creation.
Your firm likely creates client care letters, funding agreements, and onboarding materials for every new client. Rather than having junior fee earners manually customise templates for each case, what if you leveraged auto-population features in your firm’s case management system to generate these documents automatically with all relevant case details pre-filled? You could even schedule these to send without any manual intervention, freeing up valuable time for higher-level legal work while ensuring consistent, timely client communication.
Similarly, your legal administrators manually sending case updates could automate this process entirely using pre-set email templates. Even the forms they constantly populate with client data could be automated, significantly eliminating repetition.
Oh, the pain of preparing those voluminous litigation bundles! The automation capabilities in your case management system could easily handle collation, pagination, and document preparation from start to finish. Best of all, these individual automation steps don’t have to stand alone – you could link them into a custom workflow tailored to specific work types. One trigger sets off a chain reaction of automated tasks, streamlining operations and freeing the team from mundane, repetitive admin.
Automation for efficiency and productivity
It’s time to stop burning out staff with tedious, mundane and repetitive tasks that frankly technology can do much quicker and better, so that staff can focus on the work that really matters. It makes business sense to free up valuable fee earner time by streamlining and eliminating manual tasks, thus enabling greater focus on legal case work and decision-making.
Interestingly, many firms are rushing to adopt the much more complex AI, completely ignoring the advantages of process automation capabilities – the low-hanging fruit – that is already available to them. Process automation offers immediate returns, reduces administrative overheads, streamlines procedures, and frees up staff to focus on higher-value work. Then, and only then, does it make sense to layer AI on top of existing systems and infrastructure.
Law firms routinely (and unwittingly) squander their most valuable asset – legal talent – on repetitive administrative tasks that demand no specialised expertise. These mundane processes not only inflate operational costs through unnecessary junior hires but also stunt professional growth by keeping skilled lawyers buried in paperwork.
Automation transforms this dynamic entirely. When you eliminate manual workload, you unlock your team's true potential. Fee earners can dedicate their time to complex legal analysis, strategic client work, and skill development that actually advances their careers. This leads to staff satisfaction, but it also builds a more capable, innovative firm.
The financial impact is equally compelling. Reduced hiring, fewer unbillable hours, and higher-value work output create a direct path to improved profitability. More importantly, your clients receive better service from fee earners who can focus on what they do best – practice law.
This shift from admin-heavy to value-driven operations, in today’s environment, is potentially essential for competitive law firms.
Firms that use Lexis Visualfiles have robot capability for process automation practically at their fingertips. If your firm hasn’t explored this inherent, efficiency-delivering functionality in Lexis Visualfiles, contact your Account Manager, who will guide you. Automation can transform your practice, and the capability already resides in your case management system. The benefits are only for the taking.