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Document Assembly Automation

By Judye Carter Reynolds
January 26, 2007

When an attorney is creating work product, a document assembly product is in order. It's the perfect tool to bring together needed information that is otherwise often stored in incongruent systems such as document management systems, other documents and Internet resource sites. Attorneys and legal staff need to leverage a firm's library of past work, while eliminating the frustrating tasks of endless cutting and pasting and hunting for source documents.

However, without a document assembly application, the law firm's clients are paying billable attorney hours to search for the information they need. This noticeable lack of productivity and waste of resources can be avoided through the utilization of a content rich document assembly application. Nonetheless, many firms still struggle with automating document assembly, based on some common content and content system-related issues:

  • Lack of a centralized document repository. Not knowing where the pertinent information is prevents appropriate content use. Know where the documents are and which content is relevant and appropriate.
  • Outdated content. When the content is not stored in a centralized location, much of the content is outdated and can't be used without much effort.
  • Outdated technology. The content is stored in outdated systems that prevent, or greatly restrict, easy retrieval and have limited searching capabilities.

Key Elements to a Document Assembly Application

An Enterprise Based Document Assembly Application (EDA) starts with the best parts of a firm's current method of assembling documents. EDA leverages a firm's library of past work, while eliminating the frustrating tasks of endless cutting and pasting and hunting for source documents. Establish and follow these specific EDA rules for content reuse:

  • Provide access to expert knowledge-based content from a centralized data store.
  • Microsoft Office (especially Word) should be a common denominator for content formatting and work product. Microsoft Word's native tools reduce the training curve, because users intuitively know how to use the EDA the moment they move the mouse.
  • Establish a centralized process for document creation and production.
  • Explore the ability to save transaction-specific knowledge in a document model in order to prevent knowledge bottleneck that plagues so many law firms.
  • Use state-of-the-art security technologies, the same used for online banking applications. This ensures the security of data over the Internet.

Acquiring an Expert System Knowledge Base

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