How workflow automation can improve your operations

Legal administrative work is crucial to running a successful firm, but it’s something law firms can struggle with. For many law firm staff, the processes at their firm make admin time-consuming and tedious and can pull their focus from building the firm. That’s where task and workflow automation comes in.

According to Clio’s 2020 Legal Trends Report, 84% of legal professionals believe they could better serve their clients by automating more aspects of their firm’s operations. We also found that firms using a combination of legal technology collected an average of $19,541 (£14,334 at the time of writing) more per lawyer than those that did not use legal workflow automation.

Let’s look at three legal workflow automation tools that can save your firm hours:

1. Document automation and management

Creating new documents from scratch can eat up a lot of law firm time. Document automation makes it easier for lawyers and other law firm staff to create new documents from existing templates, reduces the time to create a first draft, and speeds up contracting and communication processes.

2. Time recording

Time recording can often fall to the bottom of to-do lists – and items can get missed. With legal time recording software, users simply have to start and stop a timer to record how long they spend on any one particular case or matter. From there, they can create detailed (and accurate) time and expense reports in minutes, which can save hours for fee-earners and those responsible for collating and billing for time. 

3. Issuing bills

Speaking of billing, legal workflow automation can be a huge boon for legal firms here, too. Instead of manually collecting and applying the information needed to client invoices, automating the process can cut hours from end-of-month billing cycles. If you use software that syncs to your accounting system (Clio, for example, integrates with Xero, QuickBooks Online, Klyant, and Cashroom), you can save even more time and admin work on your processes.

By automating what can be automated, law firm staff can spend more time on high-value tasks. If you’re seeking to maintain a competitive edge in a crowded market, embracing legal workflow automation could be the exact thing you need to take your law firm to that next level.