You can read part one called How To Automate Client Communication here, part two called How To Automate Client Onboarding here, and part three called Law Firm Automation Strategies For 2018 here.
One of the biggest motivation killers I had as a lawyer was preparing repeat documentation for good clients, like preparing loan docs for lenders and lease docs for property investors. I justified doing this mind numbing work because it was good ‘bread and butter’. As long as it pays the bills, right?
Whatever your bread and butter is, manually carrying it out in the year 2018 is….well….old school. The go-getters of the legal sector are able to ‘go-get’ because they have stopped doing the bread and butter so they can focus on career and business growth and doing higher value work that they actually like doing.
How have the go-getters been able to stop doing the bread and butter? One thing they’re doing is creating lawyer bot libraries specifically built for their VIP clients or certain types of clients they regularly do work for. Here’s what I mean:
Scenario 1: Lawyer bot libraries for VIP clients
You have a client who is a second tier lender who uses your firm to prepare loan and security documentation for them a few times a week. But you and your team no longer prepare the loan docs. Instead the lawyer bots you have created specifically for this client do all the heavy lifting.
Here’s how it works: .
- Say your client has 15 loan related documents they get you to prepare over and over again.
- You build a lawyer bot that creates these documents for this client. This lawyer bot is in the cloud and both you and your client have access to it. You’ve given the lawyer bot your smarts so it knows what questions to ask and when, and which clauses and information to include in the loan docs.
- Instead of the client coming to you to prepare loan docs, your client goes online to the lawyer bot, answers an online interview and once finished the lawyer bot instantly creates the customised required loan docs.
- The only time you’re required by the client is if they have a particular situation they’re unsure of.
- You can pay a lawyer bot builder to build lawyer bots for you and your clients. Or you and your team can build the lawyer bot yourself. It’s fun, straight forward and no software programming or coding skills are required.
Here’s how you can still make money from this client:
- If you get an external lawyer bot builder to build the bot you’re probably looking at around $1,500 per lawyer bot. You can charge this amount with a healthy markup to your client.
- If you or your team builds the lawyer bots internally then you can decide how much to charge your client for a bot on whatever basis you choose, like value pricing or time based.
- You can also:
– Charge the client a fixed monthly fee for access to the lawyer bots you’ve created for them, and the client can use them as much or as little as they like; and/or
– Charge the client an agreed fee for every document they create.
Scenario 2: Document libraries for groups of a certain types of VIP clients
A third of your client base is made up of property investor clients who need lease docs prepared regularly, like lease agreements, lease renewals and rent review docs. Most of them use your firm’s standard precedent lease documents. You no longer prepare these standard lease documents for your property investor clients, and instead let them serve themselves online.
Here’s how it works:
- Your firm creates lawyer bots for all your standard repeat lease documentation for your property investor clients. Your expertise with interviewing and advising property investor clients, and preparing lease docs has been given to the lawyer bots so it knows what questions to ask and when, which documents to prepare, and which clauses to include.
- The lawyer bots are all stored in the cloud in a library for your property investor clients who have access. They can now quickly create their own customised lease documents when and where it suits them and on any device.
- As above, you can pay a lawyer bot builder to build lawyer bots for you and your clients. Or you or your team can build the lawyer bots yourselves.
Here’s how you can still make money from these clients:
- Invoice your property investor clients a fixed monthly fee for access to the lawyer bots you’ve created for them, and your clients can use the docs as much or as little as they like.
- Charge the client an agreed fee for every document they create.
Do you know what’s even cooler?
In addition to automating the bread and butter so you can focus on your business, career and other cool stuff, you are:
- Creating recurring revenue for your law firm, which makes your business more valuable
- In the case of scenario 2 above, you are also creating valuable, revenue-generating assets (the lawyer bots) that you or your business own, making your business even more valuable
Did you miss any of the previous blogs in this series on How To Eliminate the Bottlenecks At Your Law Firm? You can read part one called How To Automate Client Communication here, part two called How To Automate Client Onboarding here, and part three called Law Firm Automation Strategies For 2018 here.
