Drafting legal documents is one of the most critical tasks performed by lawyers. That's not new, but the complexity and pace of document drafting today are new and significantly impact lawyers' workflows and quality of life. Technology has put better drafting tools in the hands of lawyers, but it has also increased productivity expectations and competitive pressures.
A new eBook from Litera looks to the future of legal drafting and the next phase of drafting technology. "Better Together: How Litera's Technology Integrations Solve the Challenges of Drafting Legal Documents" is now available for download.
Drafting Challenges
The eBook identifies the main drafting challenges faced by lawyers today:
- Duping and revising Reusing content in the form of templates, exemplars, etc. is an effective way to speed up the drafting process, but it raises issues around identifying the correct exemplars and ensuring that the terms and text of the draft are up-to-date and accurate for the current client.
- No margin for error. Perfection is the standard for lawyers, including substantive terms and correct numbering, formatting, cross-references, etc.
- The complexity of document review. Lawyers responsible for a document often need to obtain reviews and input from multiple people. Efficiently incorporating revisions and comments is complex and time-consuming.
- Security and risk. Sharing documents with the right people is an essential part of the drafting workflow, but doing so securely is a challenge in a digital environment.
- "Quality of life" and retention issues. Too many manual steps in drafting workflows can lead to burnout and retention problems among the junior associates that do much of this work.
The Status Quo: Fragmented Point Solutions
Fortunately, many types of drafting solutions on the market can directly address those challenges. Unfortunately, many of those solutions are locked away in their silos. An associate working on a document might have access to a firm's collection of approved document templates, for example, but those exist in a different application from the application used to modify and finalize the document. The review phase might entail sending a document to several other individuals, and that feedback will need to be harmonized and incorporated into the new document. And moving documents between applications, other lawyers, and clients can create security and confidentiality risks.
Lawyers working on a single document might find themselves dipping in and out of several software applications, each with its own interface, data storage, and functionality. Moving between those applications is a source of friction and distraction in drafting today.
The Future: An Integrated Drafting Workflow
Integrating Litera's drafting offerings with each other and the external systems that lawyers rely on solves that fragmentation problem.
- Litera Create, a document assembly and content library solution, integrates seamlessly with Document Management Systems like NetDocuments and iManage, enabling assembly and data reuse without leaving the drafting environment.
- DocXtools and Litera Check work within our customers' Microsoft Word environment to streamline proofing, styling, and formatting.
- Litera Review manages the document review process, reconciling edits and comments from multiple reviewers.
- Litera Compare detects changes in amended documents and summarizes what's changed from within the Microsoft Word environment.
- Litera Metadact secures data and scrubs metadata to enable lawyers to share documents safely.
Integrated technologies that automate repetitive tasks are essential to more efficient legal work and improve associates' quality of life. A seamless workflow, uninterrupted by constant task switching, will lead to greater job satisfaction and allow associates to focus on more challenging and strategic work all while mitigating the risks around drafting critical legal documents.
Read more about how Litera's technology integrations address the challenges in today's fast-paced, high-risk drafting workflows. Download "Better Together: How Litera's Technology Integrations Solve the Challenges of Drafting Legal Documents" today.
Posted in Drafting
