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Document Automation for Transactional Attorneys
In this paper we focus on digital curb cuts created during the pandemic: improvements designed to increase accessibility that benefit people beyond the population that they are intended to help. As much as 86% of civil legal needs are unmet, according to a 2017 study by the Legal Services Corporation. Courts and third parties designed many innovations to meet the emergency needs of the pandemic: we argue that these innovations should be extended and enhanced to address this ongoing access to justice crisis. Specifically, we use the Suffolk University Law School's Document Assembly Line as a case study. The Document Assembly Line rapidly automated more than two dozen court processes, providing pro se litigants remote, user-friendly, step-by-step guidance in areas such as domestic violence protection orders and emergency housing needs and made them available at courtformsonline.org. The successes of this project can extend beyond the pandemic with the adoption of an open-source, open-standards ecosystem centered on document and form automation. We give special attention to the value of integrated electronic filing in serving the needs of litigants, a tool that has been underutilized in the non-profit form automation space because of complexities and the difficulty in obtaining court cooperation.
If Your Law Firm Was a Product: Automation, Customer Interviews, and Who’s Your Competition
Many of the world’s greatest cities are clamoring to be the next Silicon Valley; touting themselves as Silicon Roundabout (London), Silicon Hills (Austin), or my personal favorite Philicon Valley (Philadelphia). Each region is trying to capture the spirit of innovation to further its economic growth and competitiveness in a global market. This article endeavors to make law firms competitive not only against other firms but against other technologies. It explores customer discovery and evaluates law firms through the lens of product management. What is a law firm’s product? Is it contracts drafted? Advice given? Kinda both, but also kind of neither. “[A]product is something that can be marketed to customers because it provides them with a benefit and satisfies a need.”3A client wants a contract, not just to have a piece of paper with some legalese on it, but to protect themselves or effect a sale. The benefit to the client is the hope of the purchase contract or the decrease in anxiety to know that they have limited their liabilities. Advising a client to settle a case is only a benefit if the client understands that they are saving significantly more money than if they hadn’t settled.Now that you understand what a product is, this article will talk about ways to improve your current product through customer discovery and competitive analysis. We’ll also sprinkle in some tech you should know about too.
PDF and its Discontents
This is a short article highlighting the problems inherent in our profession's adherence to a particular document format.