For every wheel that’s been invented, there will be people that want to use it in a bizarre way that hasn’t been predicted by the inventor. Like using toothpaste and a toothbrush to polish the brim of your sneakers.
Who cares as long as it works, right?
In almost every office there’s always a genius that wants to make their team’s life easier. To do that, they will take every tool at their disposal, and come up with the most efficient and non-traditional way of using it.
In this blog, we have gathered some of the most unorthodox and unobvious ways that legal document automation software can be used in. Still, some of them remain so unobvious that they have not been discovered by any of our team members So, if you know of any, let us know on socials, we will be grateful for your insights!
Collaborate and negotiate on contracts… from a smartphone
After Ethan Marcotte’s 2010 blog article on responsive web design, everyone wanted to make their website and platform responsive and, most importantly, mobile friendly. In 2021, it is difficult to find a website that is not as functional or easy-to-use from mobile, as it is from a computer. Business tools such as CRM, virtual meeting rooms, payment processing software are now all available on mobile.
Legal document automation software is not an exception. The not-so-obvious part here, though, is that most people ignore innovation and still do important tasks, such as review, collaboration, and negotiation, from their office, using a computer. Well, that’s not necessary anymore.
In 2021, it is difficult to find a website that is not as functional and easy-to-use from mobile, as it is from a desktop.
Our phones are big enough to be able to properly see all the text, and the functionality of various document automation software providers offers you the opportunity to review legal contracts, leave comments, react to them, and make changes to the contract on the go.
Once you give it a try, you’ll never worry about being stuck in traffic when an important contract review is on your schedule.
Draft custom instructions
Multiple products, properties, or pieces of equipment can all be similar, yet have their own specifics. To avoid misused, damaged goods or property, it is important to have a user’s manual, or a set of instructions.
What do dental implants, office spaces, and construction drills have in common?
There’s tons of them, and each can differ in size, functions, and materials! You can end up spending long hours trying to make one set of instructions fit every particular item on your ‘owned’ list. Or you can automate this process, and deliver tailored manuals for every product in a matter of minutes.
A manual is also a document, and that means drafting it can also be automated.
Onboard and teach new hires
Growing your team can help you reach new heights in business, accomplish more tasks and allocate resources to broaden your expertise. But first, you’ll have to teach them the company’s way of doing things.
With legal document automation all you have to do is grant your new hire access to the software and quickly show them around.
nside, they’ll get acquainted with the structure of your contracts and clauses that are important to the company, look through the template repository to know how the company operates, and get up-to-date with the company’s current clients and their relationships with your business.
By giving them the most useful tool for contract lifecycle management they have ever dealt with, you also make sure that any contract a new person drafts will be close-to-perfect and error-free.
Automate design briefs
When hiring a designer, you can’t always articulate what you want exactly. That’s why design agency clients can often get perplexed at the very first stage’ filling in the design brief. The main problem here is the kaleidoscope of images we have in our head that often lacks clarity and structure. And that’s why we need designers after all.
Document automation software is not just about contracts. It is about creating a flexible document template based on the material you already have. For a design agency, that can be a perfect solution to show off their expertise and let their clients work on a brief that already includes all the possible design options, and address most common stumbling blocks in advance.
For a client, they get a simple, engaging, and intuitive way of expressing their wants and needs to the company.
Compliant hiring process
Hiring new employees is always exciting. However, it is important to make sure that the potential hire poses no risk to your operations, and the hiring process is 100% compliant.
After defining your job requirements, classifying exempt and nonexempt employees, and interviewing potential candidates, an HR officer will have to compare plenty of data to make the right hiring decision.
Some HR departments have discovered that legal document automation software can be a great tool to check new hires for compliance. With automated workflows they can avoid the need to compare the CVs and job interview results with company’s hiring standards.
All they have to do is answer a few questions regarding the prospect’s qualifications. At the end, they will receive a reply from the system if a prospect is the right fit to join their team.
Influencer contracts and marketing materials
Just like legal operations are working with tons of contracts, marketing can involve a ton of supporting documentation as well. Especially when deploying a strategy that involves third-party promotion, such as influencer marketing.
Engaging with influencers is a great way to attract new customers and social media followers. However, there are many ways to collaborate with them in terms of KPIs, payment terms, types of engagement with prospects, etc. By setting up an automated template, your marketing team can easily draft a contract with a new influencer, specify the details of collaboration, and sign it.
A very important benefit here is that later on you can use metadata to easily find all your influencer contracts, check the details of every clause, and compare them with the provided results.
Using legal document automation software for storage and collaboration only
We already know that legal document automation software automates contract drafting. But is there good use of it if you prefer other tools to draft documents? Apparently, there is.
Even if you prefer to create contracts in MS Word, or any other system, or you receive documents from third parties, you still need to store and process them somewhere. Instead of wasting office space and paper, you can upload external documents into your legal document automation software, review and redline them, and share access with team members and third parties that need to take part in the negotiation.
Everyone has their own favorite toolset. But that doesn’t mean that combining them for better performance doesn’t work either.
Conclusion
Human brain consists of two equally important parts, creative and analytical. While the creative part comes up with all the crazy ideas, the ‘smart part’ works tirelessly on putting those ideas to good use. Sometimes, the solutions are quite obvious. Other times, not so much.
While legal document automation software was primarily created for lawyers and their contracts, it does not necessarily have to stay that way. The main idea behind the software is to make your life easier, save you time, and avoid contract management processes that are shameful. The way you do that is up to you.
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