Insights and updates
from MinuteBox
Banking, financial, and legal industries have traditionally been slow to adopt innovative technologies. As other industries view modern technology as an innovative solution that streamlines workflows, several of these traditionally managed sectors have resisted efforts to modernize their operations.
However, the game is beginning to change. Corporate and transactional practices such as banking, finance, real estate, and litigation have increasingly explored the impact of innovative technologies on their respective practice areas.
Future of banking and finance is digital
As younger consumers demand more flexibility and convenience from banking services, the future of retail and mobile banking is growing more digitized. Insider Intelligence conducted their fourth Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Study, and the insights point to this growing trend towards digitized consumer banking.
In their findings, 45% of respondents say financial institutions that offer mobile app-based banking solutions are at the top of their list of preferred bank providers. Clearly, there’s a growing consumer demand for more innovation in these spaces, but the advantages of modern technology can also improve internal business processes at these institutions.
Banking executives see technology as a means to save costs
In the same report, 39% of banking executives say that incorporating technology into their own internal workflows can help lower costs for their businesses. The right solution can also deliver more autonomy and flexibility to how executives access important business records. Up to 77% of business leaders say they want the freedom to view business data from remote locations, continuing the hybrid workflows adopted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Incorporating methods that innovate and streamline administrative and clerical processes can save valuable time and working capital for banking and financial institutions. Incurred labour costs to finalize important agreements between banks and their clients are dramatically slashed by adopting modern technology.
Why document automation solutions drastically cut costs
Document automation is one such solution designed to innovate industries and reduce operating costs. Document automation refers to the design of systems and workflows that streamline the creation of electronic documents.
Since banking and finance industries conduct daily transactional practices, document automation can make checklists or virtual closing lists more efficient for the institution. Many of the documents involved in these processes are virtually identical, except for specific information about the client in service.
With document automation technology, most of the workflows to create those deals are consistent from client to client. Once the templates are created, they can be cookie-cuttered, duplicated, and customized to each client experience.
How document automation improves B2B client relationships
When documentation is completed more efficiently, the deals attached to those documents can be finalized with more speed and precision. If large deals are being conducted between one large banking institution and another corporate entity, the speed and efficiency delivered through document automation solutions generates more revenue at faster rates for both entities.
As a banking institution, client satisfaction is essential to earning repeat business. Providing clients with faster models to finalize important business documents makes the process more efficient for the end client. Fast precise completion of their business deals means those satisfied clients are far more likely to come back to your institution when they require financing for another important deal.
Entity management platforms automate documentation
When banking and financial institutions are ready to modernize their workflows with automated solutions, it’s important they select the right solution to support their needs. Entity management software is one of the best solutions on the market.
Entity management platforms are cloud-based solutions, which means users can access all information stored within the platform from a location of their own choosing. This flexibility perfectly aligns with what banking executives are looking for in a document automation solution. They can view the records remotely, secure with the knowledge that their documents and business records are protected in the cloud using biometric and hardware key authentications.
Entity management platforms have pre-built document templates. Any legal documents to finalize a major banking transaction can be duplicated and modified in a matter of minutes.
Once an initial template of that document is created, the platform allows users to quickly duplicate those documents. Minor edits and revisions can be implemented to customize the documents from client to client or use case to use case. It’s a much faster process that simplifies everyone’s lives!
Yes—being a paralegal can be extremely stressful due to heavy workloads, tight deadlines, repetitive administrative tasks, and the pressure of supporting attorneys on high-stakes legal matters. The combination of these factors often leads to exhaustion and burnout.
Why Is Being a Paralegal Stressful?
Paralegals or law clerks have extremely stressful jobs. Their responsibilities include anything from office management to case research, and especially drafting legal documents for attorneys to present in discovery or in court. The outcome of paralegal activity has a direct effect on how legal matters proceed.
Supporting legal professionals as they service their own clients, paralegals are faced with enormous pressure and challenging responsibilities. Sometimes, the pressure becomes all encompassing, causing some paralegals to experience such strong feelings of burnout that they consider quitting their profession.
The 6 Stress Factors at a Glance
Here’s a quick overview of the main factors that contribute to paralegal stress and exhaustion:
- Changing expectations — Constantly shifting priorities and unclear direction
- Lack of decision-making authority — Feeling powerless in a top-down hierarchy
- Negative office politics — Toxic workplace dynamics that diminish performance
- Heavy and repetitive workloads — Tedious clerical tasks that fill entire days
- Pendulum swings between busy and inactive — Inconsistent workloads causing anxiety
- Feeling alone — Lack of support and recognition from colleagues and managers
Paralegals are essential members of any law firm
As legal practices, it’s important to support your paralegals because they really are the linchpin of your firm’s success. Managing the day to day aspects of the firm and drafting up important legal documents are among their most important responsibilities.
Ensure your firm is effective at servicing clients and boosting Legal Recurring Revenue by helping your paralegals complete their tasks with efficiency, precision and professionalism. At the same time, acknowledge that paralegals are often under enormous pressure and faced with powerful feelings of stress when completing their tasks.
Empathizing with and understanding your paralegals’ frames of mind will go a long way to avoid those feelings of burnout. When paralegals feel both appreciated and motivated, they’re willing to put in the long hours necessary to complete their jobs and support your firm.
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6 common stressful paralegal challenges
So what are the most common challenges that contribute to paralegal stress, exhaustion, and burnout? Here are six of the most common paralegal pain points that legal talent should understand so that the right solutions are properly implemented.
Changing expectations
During the discovery phase of any legal situation, new information is uncovered. Sometimes, that information directs talent to make a change in the legal strategy. However, if the direction is constantly shifting around, paralegals feel a lack of direction or hopelessness. They feel somehow stuck and incapable of satisfying their legal obligations.
Instead of creating environments where the expectations are constantly shifting around, try setting clear goals that paralegals can work towards. If the aim is to generate more revenue, encourage paralegals to focus on tasks that will drive more business for the firm. Help paralegals make the best use of their time so that they can contribute more value to the firm.
Lack of decision making authority
Since paralegals work under the direction of and at the behest of trained legal professionals, the firm’s hierarchical structure is laid bare. At the same time, a top-down managerial approach leaves paralegals feeling powerless to influence decisions that impact the future of the firm.
Rather than allow this environment to develop, change the way decisions are made at your firm. Grant paralegals the authority and influence to make decisions on how business is conducted. Help paralegals feel as if their voices are being heard so that they understand their thoughts and feelings are granted proper consideration. They’ll feel much happier and more encouraged to make effective contributions that improve business for the firm.
Negative office politics
At the height of the Great Resignation during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many as 40% of all workers said they were willing to quit their jobs for another position. Employees were not willing to return to full-time in-office work environments, and one of the main cited reasons was a disillusion with office politics.
It’s hard to say how much office politics impacts paralegals and law firms, in general. But if co-workers or managers decide to politicize work environments, it can create very toxic situations that diminish performance. Help your paralegals feel like they’ve avoided office political work traps by keeping the focus squarely on productivity. Show your entire legal team that collaborative shared efforts will help grow the firm and deliver the best service to clients.
Heavy and repetitive workloads
Among the most common paralegal tasks and responsibilities are managing clerical and administrative office work. It can be taxing, tedious, repetitive, and unfulfilling if a paralegal’s entire day is spent solely on inputting data into records, or sorting binders of files in cluttered office spaces.
By modernizing your firm’s approach to entity management, you can relieve paralegals of the tediousness of clerical work. Simplify the recordkeeping process by introducing legal entity management technology to your team’s daily operations. This will streamline clerical work, introduce more efficiencies across the firm, and help every member of the team earn back more time that they can use to contribute to the growth of the firm.
Pendulum swings between busy and inactive
If a firm is growing, there’s likely an abundance of work that needs to be done. However, during slower times, there can be very little work for paralegals to do. The inconsistency triggers stress and anxiety for different reasons. During busy times, stress is due to tight deadlines and competing priorities. Quiet periods of time leave employees feeling anxious that their job security could be at risk if things don’t turn around for the firm.
One way to help alleviate these stressful feelings is to teach paralegals how to prospect for new clients. When things are slow, your paralegal team can use their research skills to search for new potential clients that could benefit from the firm’s services. If they help land a new client, they feel very proud and accomplished. Those feelings may even trigger added incentive and motivation to complete the clerical work that comes from that new case since they feel a personal attachment to the client in question.
Feeling alone in a firm of legal talent
Finally, a lack of support, or the perceived notion that there is a lack of support can impact any employee’s productivity. Paralegals who feel as if they’re constantly at odds with their superiors may believe they’re fighting a losing battle, a one-person army with no victories to claim.
Make sure your firm’s culture is always inclusive and provides every member of the team with the resources they need to complete their jobs. No one likes to feel as if they’re adrift on their own, so make sure that your firm celebrates every member of the team and recognizes his or her contributions to support the growth of the business.
What Firms Can Do to Alleviate Paralegal Stress
Creating a supportive environment for paralegals requires intentional effort. Here are practical steps firms can take:
- Set clear priorities — Establish consistent goals and communicate when priorities shift
- Empower decision-making — Give paralegals authority over their workflows and processes
- Foster collaboration — Build a team culture that values everyone’s contributions
- Modernize workflows — Invest in technology that eliminates tedious manual tasks
- Provide recognition — Acknowledge accomplishments and celebrate wins
- Offer growth opportunities — Create paths for professional development and advancement
How MinuteBox Helps Reduce Paralegal Stress and Exhaustion
It’s natural for anyone to feel stressed at certain times in their jobs, but there are ways to minimize those stressful episodes. Making investments in the right resources can go a long way towards helping paralegals feel more productive and more secure so that they can contribute more in the way of accomplishments.
MinuteBox is legal entity management software designed to help paralegals become more efficient and more productive. The platform centralizes all clerical records in one location, functioning as a singular source of truth that aligns every stakeholder in a given case.
Key benefits for reducing paralegal stress:
- Eliminate manual data entry — Automate repetitive tasks that consume hours each day
- Instant document retrieval — Find any record in seconds instead of searching through filing cabinets
- Automated compliance tracking — Never miss a deadline with built-in reminders
- Single source of truth — End version control confusion and conflicting information
- Streamlined workflows — Complete tasks faster with intuitive, purpose-built tools
Since the platform functions as the singular source of truth, paralegals can quickly review the records to exert authority when key decisions need to be made. Data is the source of facts, which helps mitigate or eliminate the potential for negative office politics.
Most importantly, entity management software streamlines clerical workflows and reduces the burden of repetitive data entry. Paralegals can earn back valuable hours in their days to help support the growing interests of the firm. It’s a faster, more efficient workflow that helps all members of the firm feel more accomplished.
Key Takeaways
- Being a paralegal is inherently stressful due to heavy workloads and high-stakes responsibilities
- The six main stress factors are: changing expectations, lack of authority, office politics, repetitive work, inconsistent workloads, and feeling unsupported
- Firms can reduce stress by setting clear priorities, empowering paralegals, and investing in modern tools
- Entity management software like MinuteBox eliminates tedious tasks and gives paralegals time back for meaningful work
Ready to reduce stress for your paralegal team? See how MinuteBox supports paralegals end-to-end — speak to an expert today.
People don’t like change. That is a humanistic trait that resonates with professionals all over the world. You’ve done things a certain way for five, ten, maybe twenty years, and you’ve been very successful with your established workflow. You don’t want to be told that you have to change.
This is a common roadblock when companies attempt to introduce automated technology to their teams. In industries like the legal community, which have traditionally been very resistant to modernized workflows, resistance to change is particularly strong.
What are the common reasons for resistance to change?
There are two major reasons why companies, including law firms, resist adopting changes to their collective workflows.
The first major reason is a human trait as old as time itself. People get set in their ways and don’t want to adapt to anything new. If you’ve been doing something successfully for a long time, your natural instinct is to push back against new workflows with the question, ‘why should I change what I’m doing? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’
The second major reason is a similar human characteristic. People don’t like being told that they have to do something a certain way. Most people who are hired to do jobs prefer to be onboarded and then left to their own devices to get the work done.
Nearly 70% of professional workers have considered leaving their jobs altogether because of their frustrations with micromanagement. Forced adoption of new workflows is considered by many workers to be an aggressive form of micromanagement that can lead to resignations.
Tips to break down resistance to automated technology
Let’s look at two possible scenarios when addressing this objective. The first scenario will present the objective from the point of view of a named partner at a law firm. The second scenario will present the objective from the point of view of a paralegal at a law firm.
How named partners introduce automated legal technology to their firms
As a named partner at a law firm, it’s your job to ensure that business continues to grow. Your concern is acquiring new clients and servicing existing clients to the best of your firm’s ability. All these priorities are part of a broad effort to increase Legal Recurring Revenue for the firm.
Automated technology is designed to help your team of legal talent operate more efficiently. Solutions like entity management software streamline how your team completes routine clerical and administrative tasks. Streamlined workflows allow all legal talent to dedicate more time to servicing clients, increasing billable hours for the firm.
Therefore, as a named partner, you want your team to reap the benefits of entity management software. You can introduce a mandate for the whole firm to onboard onto the platform, or you can host a firm town hall to introduce the software and address any questions skeptical peers may have. Your position gives you the authority and influence to make this transition happen.
How paralegals introduce automated legal technology to their firms
As a paralegal, you’ll be the primary user of legal technology like entity management software. You have much less authority and influence than a named partner in the firm. Therefore, you’re faced with the much grander task of convincing the partners to purchase the software.
To complete your objective, make the case similar to presenting a legal argument in court. Conduct your research and lay out the facts to the chief decision makers at the firm. Reference statistics showing that most legal professionals devote fewer than three hours of their days to client billable hours because of the abundance of clerical work to complete.
Entity management software and similar automated legal technology drastically reduce the time spent on repetitive clerical tasks. Show the partners that a small investment in such a solution will pay itself back in more time that can be spent growing Legal Recurring Revenue for the firm.
How to overcome resistance to automated legal technology
Regardless of your title and level of authority, there will be challenges convincing your entire legal team to adopt automated legal technology. So what’s the best way to overcome that resistance and break through the barriers?
Sticking with the theme of dual approaches, there are two great ways to overcome internal resistance to legal technology. The first is to be as open, transparent, and inclusive about the new workflows.
Suggest the possibility of acquiring a new piece of software in a firm-wide memo, email thread, or slack channel (if you use slack at your firm). Open a forum for a robust discussion about the pros and cons of acquiring new legal technology so that you can address people’s concerns. This has proven to be a very effective method to break down resistance to new solutions.
The second approach is to encourage your legal talent to review testimonials from fellow legal professionals in other firms or corporate settings. Gain an outside perspective on how automated legal technology like entity management software changed the lives of the professionals in those other settings.
If it worked for them, it can work just as well for you. Take that feedback into consideration, and you may become very excited to change your approach to legal entity management with a more modern innovative solution.
Interested in learning more about the automated benefits of legal entity management technology? Wait no longer and join the MinuteBox revolution to transform your workflows into more efficient and more productive processes.
Some industries are ripe for modern technology, while others are slow to adapt to innovative solutions. Broadly speaking, the healthcare sector, hospitality sector, construction industry, and agriculture industry are some of the largest sectors of the economy with the lowest adoption rates of modern technology.
You could argue that the legal community, while not quite as rudimentary as some of those other sectors, also has a general case of technophobia. Law firms have relied on traditional workflows involving pen and paper or Microsoft Office files to manage client information. To this day, many firms still adhere to the old ways, potentially placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
It begs the question: what lies at the root of these technophobic fears, and how can they be overcome? What do legal professionals need to understand about how technology can simplify their lives so that it increases adoption rates? Let’s look into that and outline answers to those pressing questions.
Legal teams understand that legal technology is a growing trend
According to the Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey, which was disseminated to 751 professionals across North America and Europe, the top three trends cited by respondents are:
- Growing importance of legal technology in legal workflows
- Managing increasingly complex information
- Adapting to new or evolving client needs
The findings show that 79% of survey participants cited these three key areas as the biggest trends impacting the legal industry. At the same time, only 36% of respondents believe their firm or organization is prepared to address these growing trends.
Growing client demand for tech-powered firms
In the same study, participants were asked how they evaluate a potential partnering firm’s use of legal technology, and what impact that has on their decision to enter into business with the firm.
- In 2022, up to 70% of respondents said that how a prospective firm uses legal technology influences whether they enter into a working relationship with that firm.
- The response rate is up from 41% in 2020 and 52% in 2021.
- By 2025, client interest in legal technology is expected to reach 97%.
This particular finding corresponds with other industry studies that show the influence of technology on business operations. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, 77% of business owners admit they want more flexible options to access important files.
These findings should serve as a wake-up call for technophobic law firms. Clients want to work with legal professionals who support their desire for flexible meetings and file access management. Failing to incorporate innovative solutions could result in lost business and missed opportunities to boost Legal Recurring Revenue.
Why are firms reluctant to embrace legal technology
Broadly speaking, companies in most industries struggle to embrace technology out of fear that it will corrupt their use of data. Data lies at the heart of any effective business strategy. However, if that data isn’t clean or organized, it makes it difficult to interpret any insights and feed a business growth strategy.
When looking specifically at the adoption of legal technology, here are the three main reasons law firms are resistant to modern technology.
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Mistaken idea that managing legal technology is very time consuming
In the legal community, time really does equate to money. Legal professionals are always looking for ways to increase billable hours so they can boost inbound Legal Recurring Revenue for the firm. As a consequence, many legal minds are under the misguided belief that every minute not used for billable hours is a sunk cost.
Unfortunately, legal teams that fall into this line of thinking risk leaving their operations less efficient and productive than they otherwise could be with legal technology. The amount of time spent on administrative or clerical tasks remains stubbornly high without an innovative solution to streamline all these laborious tasks.
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Legal technology is costly and deemed too expensive for the budget
This is the biggest reason why firms refuse to adopt modern legal technology. Without a tangible economic benefit from investing in legal technology, firms don’t see the value in carving out portions of their budget for such investments.
When legal teams fall into this line of thinking, they forget one of the fundamental rules of any business: the cost of doing business. Any company must invest in certain expenditures to maintain and improve operations. Legal technology is one of those expenditures that pays off in the form of time savings and efficient workflows.
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Concerns that legal technology will slow things down and create lags
Similar to the time efficiency argument, some law firms believe that legal technology will slow down their rate of operations. They worry that there will be lags in productivity, diminishing the firm’s potential for growth.
The counterargument here is that legal technology is designed to introduce efficiencies to established workflows. Rather than slow things down, legal technology actually speeds things up by reducing the time professionals spend on non-revenue generating tasks.
Why entity management software is the secret to overcoming legal technophobia
Having debunked misguided beliefs about legal technology, what is the optimal solution to improve legal workflows and overcome skeptical feelings towards legal technology? The answer is entity management software, which is designed by legal minds for legal minds.
Entity management software is a form of legal technology developed by legal professionals who represent law firms, legal departments, general counsel, and compliance professionals. It simplifies the complex aspects of entity management and streamlines operations into a workflow that’s efficient, relatable, and even fun.
Entity management software enables legal teams to create one centralized location for all client minute book records. The process of inputting, filing, sorting, and tagging minute book data is complete in a matter of minutes. This is in stark contrast to the time consuming administrative tasks conducted outside of an entity management system. Investing in entity management solutions will help your legal team, particularly your paralegals avoid feelings of burnout.
Teams that use entity management software save invaluable hours on clerical duties that can be reallocated to growing the interests of the firm. It also helps with talent acquisition, as many rising legal professionals understand the value of entity management technology. Use your firm’s adoption of entity management systems in your HR strategy. This will encourage the brightest legal minds to join your team and increase Legal Recurring Revenue for your firm.
Many industries have wrestled with the question of how to manage their corporate data. Do they opt for on-premises or cloud-based servers to host their data?
The legal industry has rapidly incorporated modern technology into its operations and procedures. Legal entity management systems are one example of modern technology that helps law firms centralize client data and minute book records in one convenient platform.
When entity management platforms were first developed, they were built using on-premises servers. In recent years, entity management systems have been developed on cloud-based servers. What’s the difference between the two server types, and how are cloud-based solutions more beneficial to the firms that use them?
What’s the difference between cloud-based and on-premises servers?
The most notable difference between on-premises and cloud-based servers is where they’re located. This is one of the biggest factors for any firm to consider when deciding how best to incorporate legal entity management technology into their workflows.
On-prem servers are operated on hardware infrastructure, and they’re located in a dedicated server room within the office. Cloud-based servers are managed by the internet provider and stored within the provider’s own offices. The servers are accessed through the cloud using web browsers or a third-party interface.
Top benefits of cloud-based entity management solutions
Now that the distinctions between the two servers are broken down, let’s break down the benefits of cloud-based servers and outline why they’re the best option to help law firms modernize legal entity management.
Cloud-based servers enhance accessibility to corporate data
During the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work was how most organizations kept their businesses running in response to health-induced lockdowns. Though the health crisis has passed and the lockdowns have been lifted, the demand for flexibility and remote work remains as strong as ever. It’s not just employees who want more flexibility and autonomy; business leaders themselves want the ability to review corporate documents from remote locations.
Cloud-based servers give anyone with access to entity management platforms the flexibility to access corporate data from any location. Enhanced accessibility to minute book records makes it easier for firms to secure client sign-offs and approvals on legal documentation. It speeds up the process so that firms can be more proactive while supporting their clients.
Operating in the cloud creates efficiencies and boosts productivity
Using cloud-based entity management systems, all clerical and administrative tasks become more streamlined. Since the average law firm has fewer than three full-time employees, bandwidth is always a pressing challenge for firms.
Cloud-based entity management platforms have built-in templates to help firms streamline the creation, organization, and finalization of all minute book records and corporate documentation. Inputting minute book data takes only a few seconds, and the platform’s intuitiveness automatically transcribes that data into structured PDF-style documents.
These records are stored securely in the cloud, enabling anyone with administrative access to the platform to view the documents at their own convenience. Edits or revisions can be quickly completed, and the platform functions as a single source of truth for all members of the team. This makes entity management more efficient, more productive, and more scalable.
Law firms are not required to technically maintain cloud servers
Remember how we mentioned that on-premise servers are stored and managed within the office space itself? Someone on your team with technical expertise is required to manage those servers to avoid any malfunctions that risk crashing your operating systems. Since the average firm only has three people on staff, it’s highly unlikely that one or more of them will have the technical capabilities to manage those servers.
In contrast, cloud-based servers are managed by internet providers, who have entire departments of technical gurus on-hand to manage those servers. Your legal team can focus solely on entity management to support clients instead of worrying about the technical challenges that come with server maintenance.
Cloud-based servers add no additional costs to your office budget
Picking up on the previous thread, on-premise servers that are stored in your office space take up valuable office real estate. You need a dedicated server room for storage, requiring a larger office space that increases monthly office rental costs.
Cloud-based servers are not your firm’s to manage, which means you don’t need to account for that additional real estate when selecting an office for your firm. This is one of the main reasons a growing number of firms are choosing cloud-based server storage.
In a cloud data security report, which includes surveyed responses from 720 participants, 80% of respondents said they use cloud-based servers for data storage. Even more telling is that 61% of respondents said reducing office operating costs was one of the driving factors that led them to adopt cloud-based technology.
Legal teams operate faster and can devote more time to servicing clients
Since cloud-based servers create faster and more streamlined workflows, legal teams can spend less time on routine clerical or administrative tasks. Cloud-based entity management systems centralize any previous disparate operating systems and allow all members of the team to make faster decisions from one centralized platform.
As a result of this modern workflow, teams can devote more time to the work that ultimately matters: servicing clients and boosting Legal Recurring Revenue. Client satisfaction rates are one of the key metrics to earning repeat business from clients, as well as generating more referral business through word of mouth advertising from satisfied clients.
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing how global entities operate. Repetitive work tasks are being automated with AI solutions, creating more efficient ways for businesses to complete work in pursuit of growth. At the same time, there’s growing concern about how AI may push hard-working people out of their jobs due to a misguided sense of redundancy.
In the legal industry, these growing fears are not unwarranted. As outlined in an economic research report, co-authored by four leading analysts at Goldman Sachs, the legal industry will be heavily impacted by AI advancements. Tasks that are completed by paralegal professionals will become more automated as solutions like ChatGPT become more mainstream, placing paralegal job security at tremendous risk.
How will AI impact paralegal productivity?
According to the Goldman Sachs report, 44% of current work tasks in the US legal industry could be automated and supplemented by AI technology. Only office and administrative support jobs, at 46%, have greater exposure to AI automation. However, at many law firms, paralegals also serve as office managers, significantly increasing their potential exposure to the AI effect.
Data analysis of the European market suggests a similar pattern. According to the numbers, 45% of clerical support workers will be exposed to AI automation across Europe.
What common legal tasks will AI help automate?
The report provides a synopsis of how AI will be used to automate tasks in various industries. In regards to the legal community, the paralegal task at most risk of AI automation is the evaluation of minute book data to maintain compliance with regulatory standards.
Paralegals are often tasked with filing, sorting, reviewing, and administering minute book records for legal clients. The purpose behind the review and administration of those records is to ensure any actions undertaken by corporate clients are in compliance with legal, regulatory, and corporate standards.
The working theory put forward by Goldman Sachs is that AI will automate much of the work to maintain compliance. AI solutions will accelerate:
- The review of minute book data for accuracy
- Evaluate complex legal claims to maintain compliance
- Assist with the creation of legal motions to submit to officers of the court
What are the limitations of AI automation?
As much as there are proponents for AI automation, there are just as many people who challenge its effectiveness. The biggest criticism towards AI is the fact that the technology is incapable of being creative.
Anu Madgavkar, a partner with McKinsey Global Institute, says AI should never be considered as a full replacement for human intelligence. She encourages business entities, in the legal community or otherwise, to treat AI as a tool to improve human productivity. AI can automate data entry and summarization, but a human mind is still necessary to correctly interpret what the data is articulating.
“[Minute book] data is actually quite structured, very language-oriented, and therefore quite amenable to generative AI,” says Madgavkar. “It’s almost like a bit of a productivity boost that some of these occupations might get, because you can use tools that actually do this better.”
How entity management software rivals AI automation
The data suggests that the AI revolution is happening, and there are understandable concerns about the impact of this technology on job security. So what can paralegals do to ease their own concerns and stabilize their employment prospects?
One effective solution is to join a firm that embraces a different form of legal automation technology. Entity management software is designed to automate clerical and administrative tasks to help firms and their clients maintain compliance with the laws.
Similar to Madgavkar’s assessment of AI as a productivity tool, entity management software helps paralegals reduce the time they spend on clerical or administrative work. At most law firms, legal professionals spend only 2.5 hours in an 8 hour workday servicing clients. This is primarily because the amount of clerical work to accurately process client case files takes up such an abundance of valuable time.
Using entity management software, inputting and organizing minute book data can be completed in only a few minutes of time. Suddenly, several hours in each workday are open to billable time that’s used to serve clients and help grow the interests of the firm.
Entity management software helps paralegals grow revenue
By minimizing time spent on clerical and administrative tasks, paralegals can directly contribute to increasing billable hours invoiced by the firm. Their hourly rates will be less than trained legal professionals, but it’s still contributing a new stream of revenue to grow the firm.
As paralegals navigate through the AI impact on the legal industry, they would be wise to hitch their professional wagons to firms that embrace different forms of legal automation technology. By using those solutions to the best of their abilities, paralegals can prove their employment is an asset to the firm by directly contributing to Legal Recurring Revenue.
