10 Online Legal Documents That Can Save Your Law Firm Time and Money

Time is money in the legal profession. As the legal profession becomes more competitive, you need an edge in terms of time and resources. You can do that with legal documents.

Think about how many times you drafted the same legal documents for clients. How much time would you normally spend on those documents? The more time you spend, the more time you have to bill clients. When you’re competing against services like Legal Shield and Legal Zoom, which can offer services at a much cheaper rate, you’re slowly killing your law firm.

What if you’re able to save time and increase the revenue of your law firm by automating your most common documents? You can save time and save your law practice by staying competitive.

10 Online Legal Documents You Need at Your Law Firm

There’s a big difference between what people think lawyers do and what lawyers actually do. Most of your time is spent reading case precedent and drafting documents. It’s a far cry from what you see on TV.

Since most of your time is spent drafting documents, it would make sense to have that process streamlined as much as possible. You can still tailor the documents and provide the top-class your clients have come to expect from you.

If you’re not sure how to get started with document automation, take a look at these 10 online legal documents that you can automate today.

1. Contracts

Depending on your practice field, you may draw up a lot of contracts. Having these legal documents automated and online will cut down on any errors and typos.

With an automation tool like HotDocs, you can take care of these things easily and effortlessly. You can have a standard contract that you can customize and use with your clients.

2. LLC Operating Agreement

LLC agreements are pretty standard and there are more companies offering LLC formation documents online. Some of those services are hundreds of dollars less than what an average attorney will charge.

Granted, they don’t have your expertise, but they can take away business from you nonetheless. Automating LLC operating agreements will cut down on the time that it takes to produce LLC Operating agreements and guide your clients away from those other services.

3. Last Will & Testament

It’s safe to assume that your clients don’t have a last will & testament. About 60% of Americans don’t have a will or any type of estate planning.

This could present an opportunity for your law firm. If you do work in family law and provide last wills, then you can automate the process of drafting them.

4. NDA

A non-disclosure agreement can be used by businesses for their employees, vendors, and partners. Companies depend on them to protect their intellectual property and the company’s reputation.

You can help your clients produce iron-clad NDAs to help them protect their business.  You can take your service on step further by guiding your clients on how to get those NDAs digitally signed to keep their business moving forward.

5. Living Will

It doesn’t matter if your firm is large or small, there’s always room to improve productivity. That includes document automation.

Automating documents such as a living will is a simple thing to do, even as a small firm. You set up the template in Hot Docs and you can produce more wills faster than ever.

6. Sales Agreements

Sales agreements are another common form for many legal firms. They are used in just about every industry. Since these are so common, you can help your clients by producing these more efficiently.

7. Intellectual Property Forms

Intellectual property forms are excellent candidates to be automated. The good news is that you can easily automate these documents into Hot Docs. Lexis Nexis offers packages that you can purchase that can be integrated into HotDocs.

You just answer questions and HotDocs will produce the documents.

8. Privacy Policy

Just about every business is online. They may not realize this, but if they do online advertising or collect data of any kind (even basic tracking), they need to have a privacy policy in place.

There’s even more confusion about privacy policies since GDPR was enacted in the European Union.

9. Terms of Use Agreement

Similar to having a privacy policy, companies should protect themselves with a Terms of Use Agreement. This is another document that should be on all of your client’s websites. This is especially necessary for businesses who sell online, and use the company’s website.

10. Power of Attorney

The Power of Attorney is another important tool to have in family law. With this document, your clients are protected should they become unable to perform basic financial decisions.

Since this is another common document in family law, it’s recommended that you have this legal document online, too.

Streamline Your Drafting Process

As the legal marketplace continues to evolve, you need to be able to adapt to the changing times. Competitors are undercutting your value and you need every advantage you can get. By cutting down on the time spent drafting documents, you’re able to lower your time billed to the client.

You’re able to provide better service and you’re suddenly more competitive in the market. If you want to get started automating legal documents, start with the most frequently drafted documents.

You’ll also want to enlist the help of a Hot Docs consultant who can help you automate your processes today. Find out more by scheduling a consultation.