COVID created exceptional challenges, and many businesses raced to get set up to work remotely, without a lot of knowledge or experience in how to do it effectively.

The immediate crisis may have receded, but COVID has permanently changed how we work.  It is unavoidable that as things unfold further:

• Businesses will have to cut costs, which may mean needing to deliver services with fewer people
• We  may all have to work remotely again, or choose to continue working remotely, meaning that processes which require several people to be physically in the office or near each other to work and collaborate won’t work, and working from the same piece of paper won’t be viable
• Paperless working will be a necessity, not a choice
• Legal services will need to be delivered more efficiently, at a lower price that clients can afford

LawHawk was essentially born in the cloud, and we have worked remotely from Day 1. We use cloud-based tools, and the solutions we develop for our customers are also cloud-based, and can make remote working easier and more efficient.

We can help you quickly adjust to new circumstances, and in partnership with you, keep improving.

Examples of how we may help you include:

If you have very document-intensive processes where a few people create a lot of documents regularly, we can automate the documents for you. You may be able to create packages of documents that generate from a single set of information.

Expected benefits include:

• 75% or more time savings
• Better consistency and quality, with less review required
• Flexibility for several people to do different parts of the process, or one person may do all or most of it
• Easier precedent management, with access to only the latest template versions from anywhere via our secure cloud portal
• Easier collaboration. By sharing a screen showing the interview questionnaire, two or more people can collaborate easily to draft documents in real time
• Very strong ROI – licence costs should be a fraction of the productivity gains you will see

If you have processes where many people need to create certain documents or need an answer or other information occasionally and independently, we can automate those to enable self-service.

Examples include:

• confidentiality agreements
• agreements for the supply of goods or services
• consultancy agreements
• information regarding the application of health & safety requirements to particular situations
• marketing sign-offs
• delegated authorities

You can see more about our Self-Service Solutions here.

In a pandemic environment, decision making needs to be more agile and de-centralised, as circumstances are changing so quickly.

It will be essential that your people know what they can do and what they can't, so they stay within the organisation's rules while working more independently.

Delegations are already a significant pain point for many organisations, and often are managed through a combination of Microsoft Word, Excel and/or Outlook. We can help improve this.

This can include the process of both creating new delegations (e.g. when a new role is created, or someone moves into a new position), or helping people to understand what delegation rules apply (e.g. who can authorise the entry into a new transaction).

For more on how we can help you manage your delegations, please see our Delegations Solutions here.

Many organisations are used to running approvals via a physical document, or sending and collating emails in Outlook. It’s a massive handbrake on the speed an organisation can work at, in the best of times.

When everyone, inside and outside the organisation, needs to work remotely, it is going to be challenging to manage approval processes, unless they ae automated and brought online.

Using digital signing workflows for that process can be a great way to improve immediately. You can see more about our Approval Solutions offerings here.

Digital signing is an essential component of the response to a pandemic like COVID-19, because it simply isn’t going to be possible to get physical pieces of paper signed efficiently.

We have always been big fans of digital signing. We use it regularly ourselves, and recommend it to our customers. We also help them to start using it effectively, whether for internal approval processes or contracts. The combination of document automation and digital signing with SharePoint is compelling.

You can see more about our Digital Signing Solutions here.

If legal instructions usual come in by email, phone or in-person instruction, it will be hard to assess, prioritise, allocate and manage remotely.

We can design a legal instruction intake form that can be embedded into your intranet or sent by email, allowing and ensuring your clients can give you all the information (including uploading attachments) you need to help them most efficiently and effectively.  This is a solution that can be implemented very quickly.

You can see more information on Our Legal Intake Forms solutions here

Many organisations were already using Office 365, or planning to move to it, before COVID-19. That will only accelerate, as so many of the things you need are already in the suite you are already paying for.

There are many features within Office 365 that lawyers can use to work more efficiently and effectively. You can see this webinar we did for the Centre for Legal Innovation for some examples of how an in-house legal team can use SharePoint and related applications. 

We can work with you and your IT team (or an external provider if required) to help design and implement an overall solution that includes strong knowledge management and template management.

For more information on how we can help you with Office 365, and link what we do into your Office 365 suite, please see here.

These are only some of the things we can do, and that we know we can do well. 

If you have other problems you need help with and need a quick solution that will work, we may be able to help identify the right solutions or other parties to help you.

We have first-hand experience with a range of other legal technologies that we can share with you. 

We also have many partners we can work with. If your challenges relate to your website, general IT support for remote working, SharePoint/Office 365, digital dictation, in-house matter management, sales and marketing or Google Ads, then we can let you know who we use to support those areas, and help arrange introductions.

Our focus is always on ensuring that our solutions work, and deliver the outcomes you need them to.