Contact us on 1300 712 038 or info@mosmar.com.au

Automation in the Legal Industry: Risk vs Reward

The legal industry has forever been plagued by inefficiencies and reliance on (expensive) manual processes. However, with the constant advancement of technology and an increasing focus on innovation, automation is quickly becoming a game changer for law firms and legal professionals. Law firms are now leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automation tools to deliver efficient, accurate, and cost-effective legal services. The benefits are usually obvious, but what are the risks? 

The Risks:

While automation has its benefits in improving efficiency, reducing manual labour, and minimising human errors, it also brings with it certain risks that must be carefully assessed and addressed. Some examples of legal content that AI may introduce risk with:

  • Engagement agreements
  • Court documents
  • (Final) advices
  • “Next step” documents/emails to clients which contain dates and tasks often structured around SLAs

Loss of Personal Touch

While you may think of errors or security as number one risk, the potential impact to customer service is a big one. As more and more firms move to streamlined ways of working, at similar price points, customer service can be what sets your firm apart. As law firms increasingly adopt automated tools and software for tasks, there is a risk of losing the personal touch that is often associated with obtaining legal services. The close bond between clients and their lawyers plays a role in fostering trust and understanding which is needed to provide a high quality service. Automation could inadvertently damage this client relationship if not implemented thoughtfully.

Ethical Concerns

The ethics surrounding law practice remain an important aspect to consider when incorporating automated technologies. Some things to consider include: Can a machine demonstrate the same level of professional conduct as a human lawyer? (This is debatable!) Will automation enable or impede equal access to legal representation for all people? Could it fail to recognise underlying values crucial in legal decision-making processes?

Data Privacy and Security

Automated systems are reliant on vast amounts of sensitive client data to operate effectively. As a result, law firms leveraging these technologies run the risk of becoming prime targets for cyberattacks. Ensuring robust security measures are in place is essential to protect confidential client data from unauthorised access, potential leaks, or breaches.

The Benefits:

Enhanced Efficiency

Automation can streamline various repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as document drafting, data entry, and data analysis. By automating these processes, legal practitioners can focus on more complex and meaningful tasks and achieve better, faster outcomes for their clients.

Cost Savings

An obvious one- Law firms that incorporate automation tools generally save both time and money. Less manual processing required means your people can spend more time on clients cases and more time bringing new business into firms.

Enhanced Customer Service

As law firms embrace digital transformation, they can offer faster turnaround times on client requests and better manage case loads. Clients benefit from faster responses to their legal needs while experiencing seamless interactions with their lawyers through various platforms.

In law firms, the use of such technology is a fine balance between value and risk. These solutions appear to offer value in terms of productivity and efficiency, but we should be careful these do not come at the risk of a firm’s status, an employee’s reputation, and most importantly their client’s businesses and livelihoods. At Mosmar, we think AI is exciting but it has a long way to go before it will gain our full confidence. We recommend not going “all in” with AI, and easing your way into automation using tried and tested software. Need help? Would love to partner with you to help you on your automation journey. Contact us here.

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Court Forms in ShareDo & Templafy

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There are rules and regulations by which the Australian court system accepts the submission of legal documents. Understandably so, given the importance of such content – but it can be a headache for many law firms.

Here are our top 5 benefits of managing Court Forms in the solutions we love – ShareDo and Templafy.

1️⃣ Precedents/templates are in Microsoft Word .docx format, ensuring formatting and styles are consistent

2️⃣ Content is stored in pieces (content block or text elements) to be re-used across multiple templates

3️⃣ Form prompts help the user to complete the document (questionnaires or gating questions)

4️⃣ A template builder interface inside Microsoft Word providing low-code configuration in a familiar environment

5️⃣ Documents have context of a matter for population of data, parties (Plaintiffs/Defendants) and key dates

ShareDo:

Templafy:

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ShareDo & Mosmar: Partnership Announcement

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ShareDo announces Mosmar partnership

For over 15 years, Mosmar has been a trusted advisor to the legal technology industry. Mosmar provides cutting-edge solutions for document generation, workflow management and custom services that streamline legal processes and maximise productivity whilst minimising risk.

The Mosmar senior consulting team have previously worked in law firms, including CEO, Rebecca Painter, who was the IT Director at a large firm. The Mosmar team is unique in that they have insight into the technology pain points faced by law firms and with this deep understanding, they have developed a suite of solutions and service offerings for firms of all sizes. 

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I am thrilled to announce Mosmar’s partnership with ShareDo. The team at ShareDo are trailblazers in the case management space – and are a really great bunch of people! I have followed their journey since they started in the UK and I am so excited to partner with them to introduce the amazing ShareDo platform to Australian law firms which will revolutionise legal process management. ShareDo is the perfect addition to Mosmar’s range of tech solutions for the legal industry.

Rebecca Painter, CEO, Mosmar

Read more here about how Mosmar is helping firms with ShareDo.

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Unlocking the Power of SharePoint with Snippets

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In today’s world, workers are spending an average of 520 hours per year on tasks that could easily be automated. Automation is evolving at a rapid rate all over the world and the legal industry can’t afford to be left behind. Microsoft has been a household name since the 90’s and have been innovating ever since. At Mosmar, we LOVE Microsoft.

What is SharePoint?

If you are unfamiliar with Microsoft’s SharePoint, it is software allowing sharing of information, which is stored centrally and easily accessible with its powerful search function. It is used by over 100 million people worldwide.

What is the Snippets Clause Library

Mosmar’s Snippets clause library is a smart tool that uses SharePoint to save law firms time and money. After years in legal firms, it is no secret that a lot of the admin work is repetitive, however crucial to get right. We developed our tool to enable firms to be able to use their existing software (Outlook & Word) to quickly add snippets of firm vetted information (clauses, templated, graphs etc) into documents. So simple yet so effective!

How does it work?

These snippets can be inserted into documents by drag and drop or by directly coding them in. The content brought into the document will adopt the styling, formatting and numbering of the document. This eliminates the need for manual fix ups. The content is stored in SharePoint 365 and utilises SharePoint’s fast and efficient indexing services to always return accurate search results. Search by clause code, clause name, comments or full text data to quickly find the required content.

Is it secure?

SharePoint’s security model allows easy control over who can maintain and contribute to content. Global libraries are used to provide firm level, vetted and accurate business clauses. 

The best part? It’s so easy to implement and use! Our customers see quick gains and it’s a cost effective solution for firms of all sizes. Want to see it in action? Book a FREE 20 min demo here. For more information or to find out how SharePoint could work for your firm, contact us here.

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Our Partner, Thomson Reuters, features our products in it’s new MarketPlace

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We are excited to have our 3E MatterSphere products and services listed in the new Thomson Reuters Marketplace.

This Marketplace provides an easy way for TR customers globally to find accredited service providers (like us) and seamlessly integrated products (like ours).

Artificial Lawyer published an article on how this new Marketplace will operate.

The beta version of the Marketplace is available here.

Stay tuned for further offerings from MOSMAR appearing in this online Portal.

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Meet our fantastic new partner – Templafy

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We are so excited to announce our partnership with Templafy. Read the full Press Release here.

Templafy is a global market leader in template management and document automation. It has sold over 3 million licences worldwide, and includes KPMG, IKEA and Pandora in it’s client base. The Templafy cloud based solution provides seamless distribution and application of branded material and documents to it’s enterprise customers.

Our passion at Mosmar has always been to help our clients implement user friendly and efficient systems that ultimately save them time and money. In teaming up with Templafy, we can offer our clients complex document automation with seamless branding, secure integration and distribution.

“Helping leading brands in the legal sector to implement efficient and user-friendly solutions that save time and money is our top priority at Mosmar,” said CEO of Mosmar, Rebecca Painter. “Partnering with Templafy marks the next step on our path to providing our customers with the broadest and best possible product experience.” 

Our DocAssist automation solution provides the best in legal process automation, allowing lawyers to work the way they do when drafting documents. DocAssist as well as a number of our solutions and services, integrate perfectly with Templafy via it’s sophisticated and secure cloud based distribution model.

About Templafy 

Templafy helps many of the largest companies in the world drive workforce alignment, reduce their liability and increase their productivity through the market leading document creation and document automation platform. 

Founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2014, Templafy’s team leveraged more than 15 years of experience in template management and document automation to develop an enterprise cloud service solution, which is now a global market leader within its category, validated by blue-chip enterprise customers on every continent. 

For more information on Templafy’s product and company, visit www.templafy.com, or follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/templafy/ or Twitter: @templafy 

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3E MatterSphere Client Portal – “glamour shots”

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I’ll be honest – the 3E MatterSphere Client Portal isn’t the prettiest face straight out of the box.

But that’s not what you’re buying – the value is in the real-time and secure connection to the powerhouse of data that is your MatterSphere repository.

Here are some before and after ‘glamour’ shots of what we (and you!) can do with the Client Portal.

Want more info? Get us a shout – info@mosmar.com.au

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3E MatterSphere v9 is released. Here are our takeaways from this new version.

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3E MatterSphere version 9 is here.  As a certified 3E MatterSphere partner, Mosmar was fortunate enough to be included in the pilot program, so we had an early look at this new release.

Here are our key takeaways:

1. Navigation

In V9, this is more accentuated from a visual aspect, providing breadcrumb navigation from a consistent toolbar.

Improved navigation is a big theme in this release.  Navigation hasn’t been terrible in MS in the past, actually I feel it’s one of the better features.  Forward/back buttons like a browser, enabled users to remain the same window and drill through from a command centre view into clients, then down into matters.

2. Visuals

Upgrading from 6.3 to 7, we all experienced the ‘white wash’ and the loss of the beloved icons.  V9 brings iconography back, but in a stylish way, not to the overused degree of 6.3. 

The Visual indicators are also help with navigation so it’s more obvious which 3E MatterSphere object you’re looking at.  This is really important given that the same feature (such as search lists) are used across multiple levels – be it client, matter, associate etc. Previously it was easy to get lost in the interface, and accidentally exit out of a screen you wanted to be in.

Here’s another visual biggie – screen scaling is fixed! For those that dock and undock laptops, you likely would have experienced the controls that suddenly disappear – not cool. Problem now solved!

And for those that find the wizards that pop up, on top of another wizard, on top of another wizard, on top of (ok you get the point) – these multi layered wizards have gone with the Dodo.

3. Dashboards

3E MatterSphere was always flexible via it’s Search List function, providing visibility of data (any data – whether in 3E MatterSphere or another database) at any level of the 3E MatterSphere object mode (client, matter, associate, contact etc). 

Dashboards take this concept further by grouping related information together on the one screen.

Think – all custom data relating to a Client available on the one dashboard – matters, tasks, appointments, contacts, key dates, financial information, KPIs, SLAs, XYZs (ok I made the last one up, but you catch my drift).

4. Elastic Search

Elastic search arrived in an earlier version, but v9 brings access to it via the Microsoft Office ribbons. 

Natural language searching makes it super easy to find what you’re after, and it searches across everything 3E MatterSphere knows about.  Pretty cool I must say.  Navigation is improved (see point 1 above), and ironically perhaps not so important now with elastic search so easily accessible.

Summary

These are just the primary changes in this release, there are other more subtle changes that might really tickle your fancy. Or solve a bugbear that has annoyed you for years.

As fans of 3E MatterSphere, we are pleased to see focus being given to an interface which is used heavily by so many legal professionals.

However, we must give our prize to ITEM 3 above – Dashboards. 3E MatterSphere stores a comprehensive amount of information, and being infinitely extensible (which we LOVE), means some sites have access to an invaluable bank of collected information.

Leveraging that information and presenting it (pivoting it even) via a dashboard for a partner/supervisor/manager to oversee – invaluable in our opinion.

Want to know more?

Give us a shout – info@mosmar.com.au

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The dreaded “Save As”. When and how to use it correctly.

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Is this you? A documents needs to be drafted and you’re pretty sure you created a similar document recently for another case. Surely it’ll be faster to create that new document based on that previous one….right?

Many professionals have faced this dilemma at some point in their career – the temptation of the Save As button. You tell yourself you’ll carefully check the data, you’ll diligently proofread and any residual information from the previous case will be eradicated. Until …. the moment when it isn’t. 

The most common and critical mistakes made are:

  1. Incorrect Party/Contact details
  2. Key dates
  3. Inappropriate clauses

This article (ironically) by the Legal Practitioners’ Liability Committee nails the risks. “Previous matter documents are not precedents”, “Every matter is different and no matter how good your precedent, you need to proofread the document.” And the holy grail of mistakes – “Unfortunately, the practitioner failed to replace the names of the parties in the copied agreement with the new parties”. Ouch. 

One of the LPLC tips states it simply – “do not copy over documents from other files”

Document automation vendors (like myself) know the temptation is hard to resist, despite a firm’s best intentions, automation tools and policies. So we work on ways to ensure the Save As journey is as safe as possible. 

Mosmar’s DocAssist, and TR’s 3E MatterSphere are two products we know intimately and resolve the Save As dilemma in their own ways.

DocAssist – how’s it work?

After “Saving As” to a new iManage workspace, DocAssist will automatically pick up the new matter number and apply it to the document. 

All content controls containing the previous matter data will be cleared, and data applicable to the new matter will be loaded. Such content controls include:

  • Party/Contact lookups
  • Key Dates
  • Financial data
  • Text controls
  • Clause controls

MatterSphere – how’s it work?

After “Saving As” to a new iManage workspace or MatterSphere folder, the user is prompted to “Refresh the data”. 

All fields will be refreshed, loading all the information from the new MatterSphere matter.

What’s the benefit?

Content specific to the document itself is retained, so doesn’t have to be retyped into a new document

  • Scenario: A subpoena needs to be drafted for similar information (the core content of the document), but the parties need to be changed (the merging information via the automation tool).

Naturally the risk is reduced, as the sensitive data from the previous matter is removed and current information from the new matter is introduced.

Does it actually work in practice?

This data “merging” process is only as good as the data being captured. If you’re not storing critical contact data and key dates in a database but instead typing manually into documents, no automation tool is going to save you. 

It may seem like the fastest way to create a document, but in the long run it will burn. Both from inefficiency in creating future documents, and from the Save As risk (see above). 

What to know more? 

We have a whole raft of horror stories we could share. Or if you’d like to talk to us about making your documenting journey not a scary one, get in touch. 

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At MOSMAR we love helping our clients work more efficiently, and that’s what we’ve been doing for more than 16 years.

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