5 Key Themes from our Roundtable Series, Subject Matters – Leveraging Digital Automation and Transformation

Last week Actionstep kicked off the new roundtable discussion webinar series “Subject Matters.” In the first installments, we brought together legal thought leaders from around the globe to share perspectives and discuss how digital automation supports lawyers, clients, and the industry at large. Don’t worry if you missed the live sessions—here, we’ve identified five key themes from the discussion.

Who took part?

The session for Australia and New Zealand was hosted by David Woolstencroft, co-owner and editor of Legal Practice Intelligence and CEO of Novum Global, who was joined by legal industry leaders:

• Emma Elliott, CEO, Australian Legal Practice Management Association (ALPMA)
• Steve Pickering, Director, Verlata Consulting
• David Hepburn, Global President, Actionstep.

The session for the United States and the United Kingdom was hosted by Oliver Tromp, Actionstep’s Regional Director UK, who was joined by legal industry leaders:

• Alex McPherson, Founder and Partner, Ignition Law
• Sarah Cox, Co-CEO, Burlington Media
• Chris Dunsford, Document Solutions Manager, Element Technologies
• Wayne Pollock, Co-Founder and Partner, Cloudify Legal.

Digital Automation: Key Takeaways

Urgency to Adapt and Adopt

The conversation about implementing automation and technology in law firms has been happening for a long time, however, only recently has it gained traction due to the necessity to adapt due to Covid-19.

Emma Elliott, CEO of ALPMA, shared “Covid, when it came along, accelerated that sense of urgency, and it actually broke down a lot of the barriers in terms of decision making and roadblocks to get decisions made internally in law firms. This drove a fresh look and a mindset shift in law firms, and I think it got to the point where they couldn’t not embrace some sort of change within the law firm – it just had to happen, and I think digital automation is just one of those things that covid accelerated.”

During this period of global change, there was a fundamental need for law firms to learn how to operate in this new working environment and to meet the evolved expectations of employees and clients. David Hepburn, Global President of Actionstep, added, “The glue that holds an office together, between a paralegal and a partner, for example, burst apart. In order to help that work well, nascent technologies such as task management or well documents processes or steps that needed to be done through legal process, just had to be automated, and without that, it was really hard to govern, organize and report a firm.”

The Daily Impact of Automation

Automating tasks and processes

The biggest impact that automation can have on a lawyer is taking out the repetitive and often time-consuming tasks and processes in their role. The monotonous nature of these tasks often gives room for the human error element to slip in. By automating repetitive processes or repeat processes, it reduces risk, provides great visibility to businesses, and gives time back to lawyers to work on higher-value tasks.

“The bottom line is lawyers want to practice law, that’s what they want to do. So, you take away the time spent on the administrative tasks, and you let them get back to the business of practicing law.” – Chris Dunsford, Document Solutions Manager, Element Technologies.

Well-being puzzle

Automation in law firms can also improve on solving the well-being puzzle for lawyers and legal staff. It allows them to be digital and maintain their work-life balance through working when they would like to and working autonomously. Further, they can focus on what they want to do – be a lawyer and work with clients.

Client expectations

Lawyers are always looking for efficiency and serving their clients better – an element of this is to meet and exceed the expectations of client experience. Emma Elliott, CEO, ALPMA, shared “Just because you streamline a process within your law firm, it doesn’t mean the value to those clients decreases, it means the efficiencies within your firm have improved and you can reallocate those resources to other projects, which then should attract more revenue for your firm or add value to your existing clients.”

In today’s world, clients expect a certain level of autonomy – they want to dictate when they may contact a lawyer through a client portal instead of a phone call in working hours, they also expect immediate service online. Makes processes more immediate and in your own time “We are living in a world that now means that we expect things more immediately, on our own terms and our own time – the world has moved on. So why not allows clients to be able to access their information if it is 8:00 p.m. in the evening or even midnight if they are happy to not speak to someone and to service themselves,” said Sarah Cox, Co-CEO at Burlington Media.

Talent Attraction and Retention: How to Differentiate

Having technology in place to automate routine tasks and processes is becoming more commonplace in law firms today.

Candidates for new roles are now asking about what technology law firms use. Emma Elliott said, “they are looking for law firms that embrace technology and have really good systems in place that remove the administration burden on lawyers, because the lawyers are more interested in doing the lawyering and the high value work than those administrative tasks.” If these candidates for new roles join teams where automation is not in place, they become change agents and champions to ensure it is in place at the new firm. Alex McPherson, Founder and Partner, Ignition Law, shared that getting the balance right where you still want to be a law firm, not a technology firm is essential to retaining people. This can be done by ensuring your firm has a safe and candid culture where you encourage feedback and conversations that are constructive and inclusive of everyone who will use automation and technology.

Automation also enables staff to be onboarded easily and efficiently by the nature of processes and tasks being so clearly outlined, David Hepburn, said, “a practice management system and a well-documented workflow and automation process that are really well understood across the practice, increase velocity so quickly in terms of becoming productive.”

Automation Aids in Succession Planning

“Any amount of time that you can invest into your business and its structures that retains your IP within a platform, it then becomes a really sellable asset,” shared Emma Elliott. By putting all processes through automation, the IP no longer becomes something in lawyers’ heads but is rather trackable, practical, and sellable. If you are planning on selling or handing over your law firm, this is essential in increasing the value left behind.

“We’ve seen firms that operate in a franchise model, where they put a lot of emphasis on their systems. One of the big attractions of coming is that there are going to be good systems around them, they know they can focus on their legal work, and everything else around them is going to be run really well. You have a business model that you know works well and is scalable which really adds value to that firm,” said Steve Pickering.

Final Thoughts: What Does the Future of Automation Look Like?

Our speakers hypothesize that the sky is the limit for automation in law firms, however, they stress the importance of staying practical. Chris Dunsford shared that you must “Make sure you are focusing on the right things, automating for quality, automating to make you more scalable – that’s where you are going to win. You don’t automate just to automate.” This was backed up by our other speakers, who shared the importance of staying client-led in future automation, where if you streamline processes, and ensure client experience and journeys are smooth, then you will always have those sticky clients who come back time and time again to your law firm.

Watch the Roundtable Sessions On Demand

Take the Next Step

Using Actionstep, you can automate tasks and processes that are essential to running your law firm efficiently. Talk to our team today to find out how modern, all-in-one legal practice management software can help you stay on top of every aspect of your practice.