We help law firms of all sizes get the benefits of automation without the cost and effort of doing it all yourself.

You might think that it will be expensive and only something that the big firms can afford, particularly if you add LawHawk’s costs “on top”.

The reality couldn’t be more different. We work with some of New Zealand’s largest law firms, and with some of the smallest. In either case we can save you a lot of money overall, while also helping you get a lot more value from your solution.

For example, we recently worked with a sole practitioner to automate his documents for everyday matters, such as:

• Engagement letters
• Limited drivers licence applications
• Discharge without conviction applications
• Sentencing submissions
• Section 81/94 Land Transport Act Applications
• Letter of Advice before Trial

There are lots of reasons why law firms of all sizes should be getting into document automation:

• It allows you to access your templates easily, from anywhereo matter who is doing the work, they can do it more quickly and consistently
• No matter who is doing the work, they can do it more quickly and consistently
  
• It’s a lot easier to delegate work, and less partner review is needed
  
• You can fix your fees at a fair level, and capture the time you save as extra profit
• With online forms, you can attract more work from clients, wherever they are, who are searching online and do that extra work without hiring more people
• Your competitors are doing it. Even a large law firm can make good money on smaller matters if they are automated, as can accountants and many other non-legal businesses

You’re probably looking at how you can get into automation with the least possible risk and cost, and in doing so, you’ll be considering the mistakes below. 

We know these mistakes well because we made them ourselves when we were lawyers, and we see others making them all the time:

• With a wide range of automation software products in the market, you’ll be looking at all of them, over-analysing them and looking for one that’s perfect, and nearly free. Trust us – that doesn’t exist. If it did, we’d all know about it and be using it already
• You’ll maybe start with a simple document (such as a confidentiality agreement) that any cheap form builder can handle and that anyone can do, and already has. If you choose that solution, it won’t be able to handle the more complicated stuff that you’ll need to be able to do, and it won’t be of much value
• Perhaps worse, you might start with your most complicated document as the first one you try and automate. You’ll never finish it
• To keep costs down, you’ll try to do the automation yourself. In doing so, you’ll spend possibly hundreds of hours learning basic automation instead of doing great legal work for your clients at high hourly rates. Whatever you build will be average at best, and likely won’t be good enough to get used often, or at all. Remember, what you build will be competing against what specialist document automation professionals build
• Alternatively, you’ll give the automation to someone with a low hourly rate– a secretary, a young lawyer or a junior software developer perhaps. They’ll do their best, but because they don’t understand legal logic, experienced lawyers will refuse to use whatever they build because it doesn’t work as it needs to
• You won't take time to understand your documents and processes, and how they need to be improved before you automate them. If you jump straight in, you’ll automate a poor process, and get consistently poor results every time
• By focusing only on individual documents, you'll lose sight of the bigger picture and the opportunities to automate more of the whole process and to solve more of your client's top issues. Someone else who can move more quickly and strategically will do that instead
• You won’t plan for how to manage the rollout to your team, ensure they have the required training and understand how to use it and why it’s important to use it. So they won’t
• After a year or two of paying licence fees, without a return on investment, and having fallen behind other firms, you’ll either start again or confirm your earlier belief that you just can’t automate what you do

One of the highest costs most firms experience on automation projects is the hundreds of hours that get wasted on writing instructions, learning basic automation, testing, and re-working. Often, this is all for nothing as a reliable, robust solution that lawyers will use, never results. 

We flip that process. Even on some of our most complex projects, we usually have a substantial amount of existing automation IP we can start with. By taking time up-front to understand your requirements, we can generally be very clear about:

• what we can do
• how we will do it
• when we can do it by
• how much will it cost.

We can usually provide a fixed pricing structure with a lower up-front cost for customisation. Most of the costs can be on a subscription basis aligned with usage and value, meaning you only pay if you get sufficient benefits to keep using it.

If we don’t deliver what we say we will, you pay nothing.

Like many law firms, you may not have good precedents.

We have a substantial base of existing automation covering many of the common processes law firms and their clients do.

If you want high-quality automation, you can use now without the cost of development, talk to us about licensing our existing solutions. You can use them as they are (and only pay for usage) or with customisation (only paying extra for the amount of customisation). 

Either way, we can adapt our automated questionnaires to overlay them on your own documents or assemble our documents in your format.

For example, see our:

• Will and Enduring Power of Attorney document solutions
• Employment document solutions
• Limited licence solutions
• Insolvency document solutions
• Other court document solutions

LawHawk is the trusted advisor in the legal automation space.

We don’t just provide our law firms with documents or technology – we help them and their clients to be more successful.

As a LawHawk customer, you’ll have access at any time to our insights on where the opportunities may lie. We can help you:

• Understand what we can automate, and what we can’t
• Work out what technology solutions are in the market, where they may be useful, and how things can fit together
• Think about how you can market your distinctive capabilities to get more work
• Win referrals of prospective clients
• Complete tenders in competitive situations