The internet has become an integral part of our work, entertainment, and interactions with others. But last time you typed in a web address to access your email or social media of choice, did you think about how it all works? The web browser and applications you rely on daily impacts your speed, security, and overall experience—perhaps more than you know.
There are many benefits to becoming your own boss. Obviously, the potential for a higher income and not answering to higher ups are top of the list. You can decide what clients you take on, choose to specify in a certain area of the law, set your prices how you want, and you can build something from the ground up based on your values.
All that said, there are some changes you can expect when starting your own law firm. Once you take the leap, you’re no longer just a lawyer. You’re a business owner first and foremost. Which means your job now comes with all the business operations and tasks that keep your doors open (yes, that means business plans, cash flow forecasts, accounting and more!). You won’t be able to “just practice the law” anymore, and the growth of your law firm lies at your feet.
Woodpecker is thrilled to announce its new direct integration with MyCase, the leading legal case management software. MyCase was built specifically to support the workflows of law firms, and its user-friendly design is driven by the insights and feedback from the people who use MyCase daily. This new integration gives Woodpecker customers, who are also using MyCase, the ability to create client documents right in MyCase using Woodpecker templates and MyCase client data.
Legal document automation is a system or workflow that helps create electronic documents using data already collected. It is used to speed up the drafting process, so you can focus on activities that move the needle, reduce margin for human error, and maintain/increase profit margins.
In this essential guide, we’re going to walk you through what document automation is, the benefits for law firms like yours, how to choose the right software for you, and how to ensure the implementation is a success.
Many lawyers liken client interviews to a first date. Using the same analogy, in today's digital first world, you could compare a client interview form to an online dating profile. The interview form gives you information about a potential client before you meet them, and forms part of your intake process. It allows you to screen leads to see if they’re a good fit for your services, and ensure there are no conflicts.
In this article, we discuss the importance of high-quality interview form templates, how you can use them to streamline your client intake process, and what questions you should ask to enhance the customer experience.
Poorly or loosely worded contracts or legal documents with outdated language can have far-reaching consequences, including negatively impacting your organization’s productivity and worse, opening up your client to risk.
If you don’t want these practices to hinder the growth and reputation of your firm, then it may be time to consider implementing the use of standardized clauses across your team, stored in a central repository, such as Woodpecker’s clause library.
Administrative tasks can take up 48% of an attorney’s time. Automated templates drastically reduce time spent on repetitive tasks so you can be more responsive to clients and log more billable work to increase the firm’s revenue.
The most logical place to start is a quick win to create momentum and speed up the shift from manual processes to automation. Generating invoices is one of those recurring, time-intensive, and sometimes repetitive tasks that can be quickly and can easily be automated with technology such as Woodpecker’s Word add-in.
I’m incredibly excited to share that Woodpecker has been acquired by MyCase, a leading provider of cloud-based practice management software for the legal industry. (You can read the full press release here.). I’d like to share my perspective on what this means for Woodpecker, MyCase, and the future of the legal industry.
Woodpecker founder and CEO, Alex Melehy, recently met with Bob Ambrogi as a guest on Bob’s How It Works series.
How It Works is a series of short, sponsored videos in which Bob, a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster, participates in hands-on product demos.
During the demos, Bob asks the questions he thinks his readers (lawyers) would ask, differentiating these demos from one might you watch on a website, or during a sales consultation, as they include a lawyer’s perspective.
Watch the video as Bob learns about Woodpecker’s document automation and how easy it is to set up an end-to-end workflow, using online intake forms that automatically create client documents.
Attorneys generally think of themselves as selling a service, not a product. But in the era of digitization and automation, it now makes more sense for some lawyers to “productize” their services, i.e., convert their services into products. What does that mean?
Josh Landsman is an attorney in South Florida with a focus on estate planning, tax, and probate & trust administration matters. Josh talked to Woodpecker’s Director of Customer Success about how using document automation to draft client documents enhances his working relationship with his paralegal, ultimately improving his final work product.
During the time I’ve spent with lawyers, I’ve heard countless stories about prior attempts to use document automation, and suffice it to say, the regrets aren’t few. Fortunately, from despair comes hope.
We recently came across an article published a few years back on the software review site Capterra: “15 Things You Could Be Doing Instead of Legal Paperwork,” by Halden Ingwersen. The article is a hilariously irreverent look at how “Being a lawyer is ridiculously time-consuming” and how the fixes for that problem are often just one click away.
Doom-and-gloom, “be afraid” headlines used by some legacy document automation companies get attention. But our customers – and the legal industry as a whole – are being driven by a higher purpose: to do better. To do better for their clients. To do better to compete as a firm. To do better for people in need. To do better, sometimes, for children who have nothing else.
The legal world knows all about document automation. It’s not that lawyers don’t know about document automation, it’s just that it doesn’t make their lives better in a way that brings immediate return on investment and is easy to adopt and implement. Even when document automation systems are affordable it just makes lawyers’ lives worse. We need to change that. Now.
