A SmartLaw Firm
Walking into the office at Covenant Chambers, you will notice something conspicuously missing. Mountainous stacks of papers and files that characterize some law firms are not common here. Instead, our work desks are relatively clean and sport sleek laptops and monitors. Reducing hard copies and increasing the usage of e-copies is not only good for reducing environmental waste but there are also other benefits of going paperless as much as possible.
The most obvious benefit is cost savings. Technology helps us provide quality legal services while spending less time on administrative and non-billable work and incurring lower fees on grunt work.
An example of this is software that does bulk conversions of documents of various types into digital documents. It gets these documents ready for compilation into digital bundles for court submission and discovery. In one instance, we needed to assemble bundles for discovery and court proceedings out of thousands of emails with various attachments. It would have taken a long time to manual convert or print the documents. On our dedicated computer, though, our software made it possible for this to be completed quickly and automatically.
Similarly, the software allows for the automatic file naming of these converted documents based on their descriptions and dates. The list of filenames is then extracted using a separate software so that the list of documents would be ready for discovery. The process of creating such lists for discovery is painstaking and laborious, as all litigation lawyers are aware. We can drastically cut down on the time incurred on this task by using such software.
Another critical functionality in legal practice, whether it be litigation or transactional work, is the ability to sieve through large volumes of documents to find the relevant information, whether to ascertain the necessary facts to develop a coherent case theory for trial or to identify dealbreaker clauses or red flags in due diligence.
Our use of various software to digitize all the relevant documents and conduct advanced Boolean search techniques on such documents, including composite documents and documents with multiple enclosures, enable us to dig deep through multiple layers of documents and data for these purposes.
Our cloud-based document management system allows us to work collaboratively and grow our collective knowledge database. We can tap on, and search for, precedents and other data within the firm more effectively. For example, if a new associate requires the sentencing precedents for criminal breach of trust, he can key in the related search terms into the system and prior research that has been done will pop up. He would not need to do the research from scratch and can add on new findings. We can achieve greater accuracy and faster document management in our legal services.
Our knowledge management software also allows us to have access to a library of legal documents like journals and foreign judgments. This is especially useful for newer matters of law, which are decided in foreign courts or jurisdictions. We are also subscribed to online legal databases with digital textbooks.
We can also perform better data analytics with information from previous cases. We can check the time spent on individual cases, which helps us to provide more accurate fee estimates, quotes, and adjustments that can keep our legal fees competitive. We constantly work on increasing efficiency and streamlining task processes based on data analysis.
As with any digital firm, your security is of the utmost importance to us. We apply industry-standard cybersecurity protocols, such as 2FA verification across our software. We also prioritize data hygiene and regularly update our passwords and security systems.
In conclusion, digitalisation and automation enable efficiency, sustainability, accuracy, and analytics. They enhance audit readiness, risk management and cost savings for you, our clients. Should you require quality legal services, feel free to contact us at info@covenantchambers.com.