Law firms are needlessly wasting nearly an hour and a half drafting documents which could be completed in a third of the time, research has revealed.
It said that on average law firms spent 86 minutes taking instructions and drafting each of the three common documents assessed, compared to 26 minutes using Rapidocs Law Draft was 26 minutes, a time saving of 70%.
The in-depth survey of over 100 solicitors was commissioned by leading legal technology provider Epoq, a Legal Futures Associate, and conducted by independent research company Consumer Knowledge Centre, to quantify the savings technology can achieved.
The study assessed the average time it took law firms to take client instructions and create a first draft of three legal documents – a comprehensive will for a married person, a detailed employment agreement and a lasting power of attorney (property and affairs) – compared to using Epoq’s Rapidocs LawDraft and DirectLaw services, both of which deploy Rapidocs technology.
Rapidocs LawDraft allows in-house automated document drafting, while DirectLaw enables law firm clients to complete an online questionnaire to create a first draft for a lawyer to review and amend if necessary.
The will took solicitors 80 minutes to complete, compared to 25 minutes with Rapidocs; the employment agreement took one hour and 41 minutes, reduced to 25 minutes with Rapidocs; while the lasting power took one hour and 18 minutes against 28 minutes with Rapidocs.
When DirectLaw is used, lawyers spend no time at all creating the first draft.
Grahame Cohen, founder and chief product and technology officer of Epoq, said: “Today’s law firms need to look at ways to reduce their cost-to-serve and increase their bottom line if they are to survive in the current economic climate.
“This survey found that through Rapidocs online document assembly technology, law firms can save substantial amounts of time and effectively earn more from each hour. The time and cost-saving benefits are found in the fact that the legal content we provide has been developed to cater for a wide range of circumstances and removes the need to manually cut and paste the clauses required to complete a legal document.
“The survey also showed that even more dramatic time savings are possible for law firms when using DirectLaw, which allows solicitors to send their clients an online questionnaire to complete which creates a first draft document ready for the solicitor to review with the client.”
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