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from MinuteBox

The machines will take over. That was one of the most stark warnings from sci-fi thrillers like The Terminator that warned about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. AI has become ubiquitous across much of society these days, and new developments in technology will give AI an even greater role in the workplace.

Platforms like ChatGPT have taken the world by storm. Global companies quickly adopted the platform as a fast and scalable solution to accelerate repetitive tasks. While many business owners praise the AI solution as a time-saving asset, there are those who fear their jobs are at risk of becoming irrelevant.

Technology doesn’t need to be considered a threat. Instead, it can be a valuable tool to empower law clerks and help legal professionals increase opportunities to boost Legal Recurring Revenue for their respective firms.

ChatGPT is meant to support specialists not replace them

Platforms like ChatGPT are designed to mimic human conversationalists. Since the platform is powered by AI, it’s a constant state of learning and development. Users can ask ChatGPT to recommend suggestions for things like email communications, and the platform automatically generates a message that can be copied into an email distribution channel.

There are limitations with the technology. For one thing, the context is not always clear. Since the platform can’t know all the nuanced pieces of information that are relevant to the intended recipient of those communications, the messaging can be light on subject matter. A human touch is necessary to edit the AI-suggested comms with more depth and insight.

Additionally, while it was designed to mimic human interactions, the suggested copy doesn’t offer the same personalized touch that a human provides. This is especially important to consider in the legal space. Legal services are, in part, about building supportive relationships with clients. Communications notably lacking human empathy risk derailing those relationships.

Law clerks can use AI to become more efficient

Now, we’ve just identified some of the limitations of platforms like ChatGPT. Here’s the other side of that coin: they can also make administrative and clerical work much easier, especially for law clerks in small to mid-sized firms.

As part of a firm’s need to provide transparent client communications, a summary of all meeting minutes will go into a corporate minute book. Law clerks can use the AI capabilities of these solutions to simply draft a message that outlines the summary of those minutes. The clerk can then add in specific points from the meetings to add more context to the message.

Instead of typing out an email summarizing those points, the platform does that work on the clerk’s behalf. This is a great time saving use of technology that streamlines the administrative and clerical work involved with supporting clients.

Law clerks are even more efficient with entity management technology

One of the biggest logistical challenges for law clerks is sorting through binders upon binders of minute book records for a myriad of different clients. Entity management software simplifies this process by eliminating those paper records from the equation. Clerks can scan and upload all minute book records into the platform, which automatically curates documents into standard PDF files that can be sorted, tagged, and organized in a digital archive.

The platform is cloud-based, which makes it easy to access records from any location. Clerks can update records during attorney-client meetings rather than carry physical records back to the firm’s office to complete the amendments. The platform is also highly secure, backed by biometric and hardware key authentications that prohibit anyone without specific permission from accessing the account.

Leverage the right AI solutions to simplify your workflow

Not all legal technologies are powered by AI, and not every legal scenario requires an assist from modern technology. But there are certain occasions when solutions like ChatGPT can make a difference and streamline professionals’ day to day work habits.

For example, an innovative solution known as Second Chair is one of these technological assets. Similar to ChatGPT, Second Chair provides helpful suggestions on how to draft language for certain documents. The distinction is that Second Chair is designed to complement entity management workflows. Its purpose is to provide written suggestions to draft important documents for business entities. Some of the common documents include:

• Articles of Incorporation
• Director residencies
• Shareholder resolutions
• Entity registration documents
• Entity dissolution documents
• Client communications
• Etc.

Time efficiency is a law clerk’s greatest strength

Law firms invest in their clerks’ budding futures by providing these advanced technologies to assist with their day to day duties. Rather than fear these innovative solutions, law clerks should embrace the potential time savings that they can provide.

As firms seek more opportunities to grow Legal Recurring Revenue, clerks should identify ways to support these growth initiatives. By delegating more clerical tasks to technology, clerks can function as the primary representative of the firm when dealing with clients. The practicing attorneys can use their own billable hours for more strategic discussions with clients, while clerks respond to client inquiries about the status of their cases.
Legal technology can modernize law firms and assist law clerks with their own duties and responsibilities. Now is the time to embrace innovation! Learn more about how solutions like entity management technology can transform your legal practice.

Corporate paralegals are essential team members of a general counsel or corporate legal department. Their primary duties are to assist professionals with account research, records management, and consultations with other department heads or external vendors. Paralegals are essential cogs in a corporate legal machine.

A sizable percentage of a corporate paralegal’s day is tied up in the management of clerical and administrative work. All these tasks are essential to the longevity and security of any corporation. But they require a substantial amount of a paralegal’s time to manage.

Corporations typically measure employee performance by their contributions to the growth of the business entity. When paralegals are inundated with piles of clerical and administrative paperwork, it limits their ability to make those contributions. In some instances, the disconnect between corporate expectations and the day to day workload can cause paralegal burnout.

Why corporate paralegals need entity management software

Entity management software assists legal professionals with the management of corporate data, enterprise security, and especially clerical or administrative work. Legal entity management solutions protect sensitive corporate data, automate repetitive legal department tasks, and help all legal professionals become more efficient and productive.

Paralegals are the primary beneficiaries of entity management software. Here are four of the main reasons why corporate paralegals need legal entity management technology to improve their own workflows and make greater contributions to the future of the corporation.

Streamline the filing and management of corporate records

A paralegal’s most time consuming responsibilities involve the filing and management of corporate entity records. It involves repetitive data entry tasks that are important for the business, but they’re very time consuming for paralegals.

Entity management technology helps automate these workflows. The software includes built-in templates for minute book records, enabling paralegals to simply input data into pre-assembled fields rather than create the records from scratch.

It’s a far more efficient way to complete essential corporate entity responsibilities. Paralegals can improve their own utilization rates – i.e. the percentage of an eight-hour day spent on growth-generating initiatives – and make greater contributions to the corporation.

The Clio Legal Trends Report is a detailed study showing how corporate entities improve paralegal utilization rates by adopting legal entity management technology into their operations. According to the report, utilization rates have increased an average of 18 percent over the past six years.

Corporations that invest in legal entity management technology understand that every hour of legal work is valuable to the business. Providing paralegals with innovative solutions ensures your corporation gets the most bang for its buck from every member of your legal team.

Create faster and easier ways to acquire signatory approvals

Any legal documentation cannot be finalized without signatory approval from key stakeholders. It’s how corporations maintain transparency and accountability in an effort to promote responsible corporate governance and compliance protocols.

Corporate paralegals typically sit in on important meetings between various corporate executives. They document the key discussion points and summarize the conversation for all stakeholders to review at a later date.

Sometimes, these meetings involve both internal and external stakeholders. This is more common when discussing a merger or acquisition, or a collaborative partnership between one entity and another. Therefore, paralegals must secure signatory sign-off from both their colleagues and external partners.

Entity management software includes built-in e-signature capabilities that allow executives to instantly sign-off on documents. Paralegals can organize, communicate, and finalize records from important executive meetings all within the convenience of the platform. This is a far more efficient and effective way to achieve sign-off on important documents than creating a long thread of back and forth email communications with multiple stakeholders.

Track shareholder activity and accurately report all transactions

Every corporate entity has a board of directors, largely composed of wealthy investors. Every investor takes an ownership stake in the corporation, and their ownership percentage is monitored through the issue and transfer of corporate shares.

Part of a corporation’s compliance program is to accurately and diligently report any shareholder activity to the appropriate regulators. Paralegals are typically tasked with the documentation of shareholder activity, requiring them to update shareholder ledgers with recent transactions that alter the ownership of the corporation.

Traditionally, this process was as tedious as clerical and administrative updates to minute book documents. Paralegals would document new share issues using pen or paper or an Excel spreadsheet and make the appropriate updates as necessary.

Using entity management software, this process becomes far more automated. Entity management technology provides shareholder ledger templates that can be populated with the names, titles, business addresses, and ownership percentages of each shareholder. Any new issue or transfer of shares can be updated in just a few seconds, and the platform intuitively displays the updates in summarized shareholder ledger reports.

It’s faster, easier, and remains in compliance with the laws, so why not make it part of your corporate entity management process?

Reduce legal risk and maintain corporate compliance

Any corporate entity is concerned about its own exposure to legal or financial penalties for non-compliance. Federal regulators are enacting legislation to crack down on non-compliance and white collar crimes, creating greater concerns about risk and disruptions to business.

A large part of any general counsel’s and in-house legal department’s responsibilities is to develop, manage, and oversee a corporate compliance program. Entity management software makes these responsibilities much more efficient for paralegals and their superiors.

Entity management technology has a built-in compliance framework that provides a diligent overview of everything your business entity needs to remain in compliance with the laws. The framework includes things like organizational charts, calendars, workflows, and other templates to monitor for any errors in statutory non-compliance, and date-based compliance tasks.
Your paralegals can use the compliance framework to construct and standardize your corporation’s compliance program. It provides a documented source of truth that all executives, employees, shareholders, and other business partners can use to maintain compliance.

Corporate entities maintain sensitive minute book records to document vital legal entity data. Minute book records contain legally sensitive information about the business hierarchy, ethics, and compliance policies, as well as confidential shareholder information.

Sometimes, multiple executives or members of the general counsel department must edit, share, or otherwise handle these secure minute book records. Teams must collaborate as they hand off protected data without compromising the security of the entity or violating compliance protocols from government regulators.

Maintaining the privacy and sensitivity of these minute book records is one of the core benefits of entity management software. Platforms like MinuteBox help teams streamline minute book management with more secure and efficient workflows.

Secure Collaboration is a secure collaborative feature in entity management platforms that helps modernize minute book management. Here are three of the primary ways that secure collaboration protects sensitive legal entity data to help maintain corporate compliance.

Secure share grants platform access to minute book data

Data security is absolutely essential when managing corporate minute book records. It’s imperative that legal entity data remain protected under lock and key as general counsel manages the records.

There’s always a risk that data could be lost, misplaced, or compromised when shared over email. PDF or Excel files with vital corporate entity data are at risk of exposure when sent across different email servers and addresses.

The benefit of Secure Collaboration’s Secure Share feature is that it eliminates this workflow altogether. Grant team members portal access to the platform with secure passwordless logins. You can see who accesses the platform, apply granular share limits to specific data, and set an automatic expiration date for the portal to maintain corporate security. No more emailing PDFs!

Real-Time Collaboration makes cooperation a breeze

Part of legal entity security is knowing who makes what updates to the records, and when those changes are made. Traditionally, general counsel maintains a manual audit in a spreadsheet that documents when any new changes are made to the records.

Using entity management software’s Real-time Collaboration feature, all the manual work is eliminated from the process. A secure audit trail tracks every change within the platform, providing a diligently documented record of any updates to minute book data.

Additionally, the feature delivers real-time notifications that let you know when anyone else is viewing the records. All changes can be marked as drafts until general counsel can review and sign off on them. This means all drafted changes can be saved in real-time, ensuring no updates are lost in the hand-off between collaborators.

Advanced Reporting allows oversight of all legal entities

Not every executive, director, or shareholder needs to see every piece of data within your corporate minute books. In fact, most of them aren’t interested in anything more than the absolute essentials.

Using entity management software’s Advanced Reporting feature, you can create comprehensive reporting filters to describe specific legal entity data to your superiors. The reports are dynamic and easily shareable within the platform, granting all users access to the data at the appropriate times.

The reports are fully customizable, allowing you to tailor how the information is reported based on the recipients. This feature makes legal entity management fun, simple, and accurate!

Improve executive satisfaction with secure record-sharing

The main benefit of Secure Collaboration and all its corresponding features is more secure corporate record-sharing. But the supplementary benefit is that it improves interpersonal relationships between collaborators and superiors.

Efficient and streamlined collaboration means the right people get the answers they need faster and easier. As a result, entity management as a practice satisfies the requirements for corporate compliance and makes everyone’s lives easier. When executive lives are made easier, everyone feels happier and more satisfied with their work!

Ready to create a more secure and collaborative approach to minute book management? Join the MinuteBox revolution, introduce Secure Collaboration to your legal entity management workflows, and improve the satisfaction of maintaining compliance.

An organizational chart displays the internal structure of a business entity. Each employee’s name is represented within boxes or other shapes, often with a corresponding photo to provide a face with the name.

At the top of most organizational charts are the chief executives, who direct the operations of the company. In some instances, the organizational charts will include members of the Board of Directors and shareholders with significant ownership in the corporation.

The purpose of organizational charts is to create documented illustrations of working relationships, reporting relationships, and corporate hierarchies. Organizational charts instill effective corporate governance throughout the business entity when appropriately developed.

Visualize Ownership and Entity Relationships in Real Time

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Benefits of organizational charts and corporate hierarchies

Organizational charts provide the structure that allows key business decisions to get done. Corporate hierarchies, established by organizational charts, enable corporate executives to implement the mandates of proper corporate governance.

Corporate governance encompasses all the rules, practices, and processes that help business leaders manage how the entity operates. Organizational charts give key decision makers the authority and influence to enforce corporate governance policies and procedures. Collectively, these documented structures help the business maintain momentum and achieve growth.

What happens without structured organizational charts?

There are significant risks for corporate entities that do not create structured organizational charts. Those risks can be relatively minor, in the form of small fines from government regulators. On the other hand, some business leaders can drive their companies into bankruptcy and subject themselves to criminal indictments.

The most recent example of the latter scenario is the FTX cryptocurrency bankruptcy. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with eight counts of federal crimes in the United States, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, for misappropriating client funds.

The cryptocurrency exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022. The newly appointed CEO revealed in federal testimony that, under SBF’s leadership, there were no organizational charts at FTX, no corporate governance policies, and a blatant disregard for maintaining compliance with federal laws.

How to create organizational charts with entity management software

One of the chief advantages of entity management software is its intuitiveness. Entity management platforms like MinuteBox were built for non-technical business leaders and legal professionals. The platform relies on no-code document assembly programming to simplify entity management workflows, including the creation of structured organizational charts.

Here’s a basic overview of how to create your own corporate organizational charts using entity management software like MinuteBox.

1. Input the names and titles of your employee registry

Entity management software streamlines most administrative tasks and responsibilities. Data entry specialists, administrative managers, or paralegal professionals are often tasked with data management. The platforms simplify their workflows, translating processes to sort and organize all the data, from hourly commitments down to mere minutes of work.

The one area of this workflow that can’t be simplified is the initial input of corporate data. This is the most time consuming step in the process. However, the platform does include built-in modules that outline exactly where and how to input employee information so that the organizational charts are properly created.

1. Save your work and submit the data into the platform

Complete the insertion of all the names and titles of your employees, executives, board directors, and shareholders. Save your data entries and submit the filings into the platform.

Remember that entity management software is designed to be intuitive. The platform understands the data you’ve inputted, and it intuitively knows how to structure and organize the data into the files you need. The names and titles of your entire corporate registry will automatically be organized into detailed organizational charts.

1. Download your organizational charts into PDF documents

Your organizational charts are automatically generated in a matter of seconds once you submit your data into the platform. Simply select download on the generated file, and you’ll receive structured organizational charts in the form of PDF documents.

If you need to disseminate the files to corporate executives, this is the way to do so. On the other hand, you can keep the organizational charts within your entity management platform and refer to the documents whenever necessary.

Use entity management software to help structure your corporate entity

Entity management software like MinuteBox makes the process of creating organizational charts quick and painless. The documents are produced in record time, and they can serve as one of the foundational pillars of your corporate governance policies.

Modern technology has dramatically changed the legal industry. Today’s legal professionals have more flexibility to undergo discovery, undertake research, commence depositions, and manage minute book records for multiple cases.

The best solutions enable professionals to streamline common workflows and operate more efficiently. Streamlined workflows equate to significant time savings, particularly for paralegals and law clerks whose primary duties revolve around clerical and administrative tasks to support the interests of their respective firms.

What accelerated the adoption of new legal technologies?

One of the accelerants that fueled the adoption of innovative legal technologies was the COVID-19 pandemic. Confined to home environments and locked out of their offices, paralegals were no longer able to conduct their duties in the traditional sense.

According to MinuteBox co-founder Sean Bernstein, in an interview with Canadian Lawyer, the pandemic forced firms to introduce innovative legal technologies to their workflows, because there were no paralegals at the office to get legal talent answers to their clients’ questions.

“In COVID times, that’s the one thing they couldn’t do. And as a result, their clients suffered, their work product was delayed, and they couldn’t deliver what was necessary in order for them to have a good legal practice.”

What purpose does legal technology serve for legal talent?

Legal documentation is one of the most time consuming and repetitive processes in any operating firm. In many cases, clerical and administrative work can actually get in the way of client relations and billable hours. In fact, the average lawyer bills just 2.5 hours in an 8-hour workday, amounting to only 31% of their professional time.

It’s not just law firms that struggle with an abundance of clerical work. According to EY Law and the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession, a survey of 2,000 business professionals, 87% of corporate general counsel say their departments spend too much time on clerical duties and legal documentation.

During the pandemic, many professionals acknowledged their need for a unified minute book management process that was more efficient, flexible, and autonomous. According to Sean, this drove firms to consider document automation solutions that functioned within the digital cloud.

“There is now the belief that things not only should change but need to change, and that feeling is coming not just from legal innovators but also from the law firms. They recognize that in every circumstance, service needs to be delivered in different ways. And in many ways, it needs to be delivered in a better way to ensure the client experience.”

How document automation software improves paralegal workflows

So how can document automation software improve paralegal workflows and enable legal departments to function more efficiently? Here are the four main ways that legal departments are becoming more streamlined thanks to document automation solutions.

Reduces laborious time spent on clerical work

The biggest advantage of document automation software is the time savings it delivers to firms. Document automation software is an intuitive innovation, automatically generating structured PDF-style minute book records when new client data is uploaded into the platform.

Instead of combing through individual files to organize the minute book, the software does all the organization for paralegals. Suddenly, a process that once took several hours for each client case file can be fully automated and completed in a matter of minutes.

No code document assembly means no technical expertise required

Sometimes, companies are slow to adopt innovative technologies because they lack the technical expertise to manage those solutions. Law firms and corporate counsel no longer have any need to fear document automation technology since it’s built to serve the non-technical legal professional.

This is a feature that MinuteBox has perfected and that few other document automation solutions can deliver. No-code document generation easily creates and customizes legal documents without the need for a trained developer. The platform is intuitive enough to generate those organized minute book records without human technical assistance. All your paralegals have to do is simply upload the data, and the platform will do the rest.

Built-in automated compliance module helps firms follow the letter of the law

Law firms or in-house general counsel are often tasked with creating a compliance program. The sequences involved in creating a compliance framework are also time consuming, and enforcing the policies requires diligent management by legal professionals.

Using a document automation solution, the platform’s built-in compliance module monitors all entity data for any errors and statutory non-compliance risks. This extends to monitoring organizational charts, calendars, workflows, date-based compliance tasks, and other templates that could derail the effectiveness of a compliance program.

The penalties of non-compliance include stiff financial penalties for the business entity, as well as potential jail time for the executives and directors who permitted non-compliance. Document automation software helps your legal team enforce compliance and protect the business.

Efficient workflows empower paralegals to deliver greater client service

When paralegals are no longer spending up to 70% of their working days on clerical work thanks to document automation software, more time is available to work directly with clients on their case files. Client service is essential to boosting client retention rates and improving Legal Recurring Revenue for a firm.

Since document automation software like MinuteBox is a cloud-based solution, paralegals can also service clients from locations of their choosing. Granting clients access to the digitized documents in the platform allows them to view the records from remote locations. Service is far more convenient when clients aren’t required to visit law offices to discuss their cases.

The city of Montreal will serve as host of the 2023 Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) National Director Conference & Fellowship Awards Gala. The event brings together international thought leaders and experts to discuss how new breakthroughs are disrupting corporate governance conventions and leading to massive transformational change.

One of the main themes at the event is how to manage human capital and workforce talent. Discussions will range from the governance of talent management to the reassessment of how corporate boardrooms oversee executive talent.

Technology and innovation revolutionize talent management

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the corporate world has adopted remote flexible work arrangements as the new norm. Innovative technologies enable professionals to conduct their business from any location in the world. Companies that support remote work and use of innovative technology have a leg up in the talent acquisition and management markets.

In a survey of over 140 business leaders across multiple industries, 94% of respondents said their corporations will continue to transition their workforces towards remote work. They also cited a number of investments that will be necessary to make this transition permanent. High on the list, according to 52% of respondents, is investing in the right software.

Innovative technology can attract the best legal talent

When companies discuss innovative strategies to modernize corporate governance, the discussion must include how to use those same solutions to attract top legal talent. Corporate governance and compliance protocols are core responsibilities of in-house legal teams, so it’s essential that legal entities attract the most capable talent to join their workforces.

Legal professionals appreciate corporate entities that embrace innovative technology designed to modernize corporate governance using flexible workflows. Corporations that cater to those interests and modernize corporate governance workflows have a leg up on both attracting and retaining the best legal minds in the business.

A Thomson Reuters survey found that legal professionals are willing to remain loyal to entities that support more flexibility and autonomy in their work schedules. At the same time, they’re willing to move on from firms or in-house counsels that reject innovation.

Use entity management software as a recruitment strategy

To demonstrate to high-valued legal minds that your corporation is committed to innovation, entity management software is one of the best software investments for the business. Entity management software is designed by legal professionals to help other legal professionals modernize minute book management, streamline clerical processes, and implement effective corporate governance protocols all within the convenience of one centralized system.

One of the most tedious legal responsibilities is clerical and administrative work. In fact, studies have shown that the average legal professional spends nearly 50% of their day on administrative and clerical work.

Entity management software is designed to simplify these mundane tasks using custom built templates housed within the platform. The software is intuitive and automatically converts inputted minute book records into PDF-style documents that can be disseminated to the proper stakeholders. Suddenly, the amount of time spent on clerical duties is dramatically slashed.

Entity management software’s built-in governance templates simplify legal workloads

Issuing and maintaining effective corporate governance protocols protect your organization from significant legal penalties, including the possibility of jail time for senior executives as punishment for serious violations of the law.

Using entity management software’s built-in compliance and governance protocols, your legal team ensures all aspects of the organization are functioning in an ethical and legally responsible manner. The platform uses modules to establish governance and compliance frameworks with documented sequences for how to enforce those protocols.

Within those modules are pre-built sequences that highlight errors, statutory non-compliance, and data-based compliance tasks still pending finalization. Additionally, the platform has easy-to-use templates to create structured organizational charts, compliance calendars, governance workflows, and other processes to enforce the proper systems.