In Legal Services
The role of automation technology in the production of legal documents has been widely recognised. For example, Richard Susskind’s book ‘The End of Lawyers’ looks at the use of document automation software that enables clients to generate employment contracts and Wills with the use of an online interview or decision tree. Susskind regards Document Assembly as one of 10 'disruptive technologies' that are altering the face of the legal profession. In large law firms document assembly systems are increasingly being used to systemise work, such as complex term sheets and the first drafts of credit agreements.
With the liberalisation of the UK legal services market spearheaded by the Legal Services Act 2007 large institutions have broadened their services to include legal assistance for their customers. Most of these companies use some element of document automation technology to provide legal document services over the Web. This has been seen as heralding a trend towards commoditisation whereby technologies like document automation result in high volume, low margin legal services being ‘packaged’ and provided to a mass-market audience.
Read more about this topic: Document Automation
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