ROBOTICS IN THE LEGAL SECTOR

If you're thinking there must be a better way, there is

T-Impact is a leading Lawtech firm, helping ambitious law firms evolve to survive in the rapidly changing legal industry. We work with your leadership team to define a Digital Transformation roadmap, then implement change projects that increase Revenue Per Lawyer (RPL) and respond to new competition & customer demands.

Our Artificial Intelligence (AI) subscriptions enable law firms to test the water with a minimal investment, building a solid business case to justify more substantial projects. One of our most popular products is the Robotics Process Automation (RPA) subscription, which can usually be implemented in weeks, providing clear returns and building confidence in the technology. Speak with one of our experts today to learn how other law firms are embracing this technology to get ahead of the market or find out about our specialist events for Legal Managing Partners.

Improve Capacity

Insource

Improve Profitability

Reduce Employee Stress

Improve Staff Morale

Improved Accuracy

Increased Compliance

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THE LEGAL MARKET IS CHANGING

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ALTERNATIVE BUSINESS STRUCTURES

This radical change of legislation has opened the previously ‘closed-shop’ legal profession, and competition is expected to be fierce. Audit and accounting firms, such as PWC, KPMG, EY & Deloitte, are leveraging established C-Suite corporate relationships to cross-sell a full suite of legal services. Firms renowned for customer service are offering legal services in new and innovative ways.

CUSTOMERS

Our increasingly digitised and connected society is changing customer behaviours and expectations. They seek others with shared experiences, searching to see what others did in similar situation before contacting a law firm for professional advice. They expect law firms services to match other providers, available twenty-four-seven via an ever-growing array of channels.

LEGAL CONVERGENCE

Larger law firms are acquiring midsized companies as a means of accessing new markets. Riverview Law and Berry Appleman & Leiden were recently acquired by Audit firms. This makes it even more challenging for those midsized firms that remain, and more important than ever that they’re doing all they can to exploit new opportunities available, whether digital or otherwise.

ECONOMIC CHALLENGES

First with the recession and now Brexit, UK law firms have had a tough few years. In order to survive, firms have no choice but to think creatively and boldly about how they can drive efficiencies and grow new revenue streams. Robotics and AI are proving to be central to those ambitions.

TOP 200 GLOBAL

You are no longer only competing with your domestic peers. The largest US law firms are targeting UK Customers ad the top 200 global law firms are leveraging technologies such as Robotics and AI to commoditise legal services, taking business from both mid-market and high street law firms – accessing new customers and increasing market share. The rest of the market is now under tremendous pressure to respond or lose revenue.

WHAT CAN ROBOTICS AND AI DO IN THE LEGAL SECTOR?

LEVERAGING THE VALUE OF ACQUISITIONS

When a law firm is acquired, the data in the case management system is taken “as is”. It can often be difficult to upsell and cross-sell services to the acquired customer base if the customer contact data is inaccurate. Advanced features of your case management tool rely on accurate data and often can’t be used until the data is cleansed.

Working with a major law firm, we developed an AI Robot to correct the customer contacts from several firms acquired over recent years. The Robot corrects every record, from every firm, every day. Their head of strategy estimated that it would have cost the firm just under £4 million to cleanse the data once using human workers and it would have taken more than a year. We designed, built and implemented the solution using our Robotics subscription service for less than £50,000. Our Robot doesn’t stop there, it continues to validate every customer record, every day ensuring any errors made by its human colleagues is corrected before they come into work the next morning.

DIGITISE NEW CASE MATTERS TO INCREASE REVENUE PER LAWYER

Fee earners and back office staff spend hours entering data into IT systems and performing basic validation checks when taking on new clients. We worked with a mid-sized law firm to automate this process, reducing these admin costs by 60% and freeing staff to take on additional fee-earning work.

This solution automated anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) checks, validating data against Companies House and Criminal record bureau (CRB) portals.

AUTOMATING REGULATORY REPORTING

Most law firms have fee earners and back office staff who spending significant time updating Government portals, re-keying data from their case management systems for compliance purposes. Forward-thinking law firms are using Robots to perform this re-keying automatically, reducing costs and eliminating compliance risk. Robots never forget the updates and never make data entry errors and these projects quickly pay for themselves in labour savings. The value of improved quality assurance is hard to estimate but can be substantial.

AUTOMATE DATA SUBJECT ACCESS REQUESTS (DSAR)

Customer data is often replicated across multiple systems. It can be difficult and time-consuming to collate data from all sources and respond to a DSAR. Increasingly companies are reducing the costs and risks of DSAR non-compliance by automating this with a robot. Once trained, a robots will search every relevant IT system for every DSRA, eliminating any risk a check is missed, leading to costly fines and reparations.

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HOW DO ROBOTS WORK WITHIN LEGAL FIRMS?

Mention AI robots and most people think of SciFi Robots such Terminator or one arm manufacturing robots. The term AI Robotic Process Automation (RPA), refers to specific forms of software that can be ‘trained’ to perform a variety of manual functions, such as opening emails, saving attachments and entering and extracting data.

Robotic process automation (RPA) mimics human activity on your computer. By executing specific work flows and applying business rules, RPA can perform many of same functions as a human. It accesses and creates data within your existing I.T. systems, spreadsheets, software and documents. When it needs to make complex decisions, it reaches out to AI platforms, such as Watson, Microsoft AI and Google deepmind, passing the data needed for the decision and receiving guidance on what to do with the results.

BENEFITS OF RPA IN LEGAL FIRMS

Improve capacity – Every organisation has a shortage of good people who understand and can help grow the business. Most managers are frustrated at the time they have to spend dealing with tedious and time intensive administration. Free them from these chores, increase your capacity immediately and focus their time on what they do best – understanding and interpreting the law to satisfy your clients and build new revenue streams.
Insource – Many firms have outsourced activities perceived as non-core to achieve improve profitability. Over time the savings are eroded by the quality assurance work required to protect your brand and improve customer experience. You can insource many of these capabilities, building your own in-house digital robotic team, which can operate seamlessly with your processes and IT systems.
Improve Profitability – Your robots work 20 times faster than their human colleagues. They work twenty-four seven, without needing to take a break or go on holiday. They don’t need cups of tea to keep them going or performance management reviews to help them achieve their goals. As a result, you can maximise your revenue without having any of the costs associated with additional staff.
Reduce Employee Stress – Work isn’t always a steady, linear process. It comes in peaks, troughs and cycles. Whilst you cannot change the cyclical nature of some work, you can use Robots to handle heavy workloads, eliminating excessive stress for your staff. Once you train one Robot, it can share that knowledge other Robots. Multiple Robots can work together to complete most transactions, escalating only the most complex for your staff to deal with.

Improve Staff Morale – None of your staff applied for a job described as entering data into spreadsheets or rekeying data between IT systems, yet most of them have to do this for some/most of the day. Robots can automate the menial work that no one enjoys doing, freeing them for more rewarding work.
Improved Accuracy – Robots can process data faster than any human hand, as well as ensuring that the data input carries absolutely no errors. Robots don’t get bored doing the same task. Their mind doesn’t “switch off” when doing data entry. As a result, they don’t make errors. Many of your most valuable resources spend time checking and correcting the work of others. They also spend days researching complaints, trying to figure out where things went wrong, often finding that the root cause was a simple data entry error. Free these staff from fire–fighting, focusing them on making things better for both your customers and your partners/shareholders.
Robots can work with a variety of I.T. systems, including those web sites provided by regulators and government agencies. Use Robots to make timely and accurate updates to all necessary legislative portals, ensuring you stay up to date with the latest changes to the law and obey all data protection laws. This ensures that the customer’s information and your business integrity is never compromised.

Mogers Drewett LLP – Testimonial

Ashtons Legal – Testimonial

FAQs

CAN ROBOTICS BE DEPLOYED WITH MY CASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?

Robotics can work with any practice management system or case management system.

T-Impact’s RPA solution is compatible with all case management systems, including some of the most popular offerings such as LEAP, Peppermint, Sos and Tikket. There is also no need to build additional interfaces or APIs. Our solutions can integrate with any technology – even ancient “green screen” devices.

HOW COULD ROBOTICS HELP ME TO ATTRACT THE BEST 'MILLENNIAL' AND 'GENERATION Z' STAFF?

Many smart young people grow up dreaming of one day becoming a lawyer. None of them grow up dreaming of typing data over and over again into a spreadsheet. And if they did, are you sure these are the people you want in your firm?

Great people want to be using their talents dealing with clients and offering creative solutions to complex problems. They want to feel they are making a difference to your customers, your firm and to society. Introducing technology like robotic process automation eliminates dull, repetitive tasks, so you can ensure they are able to do exactly that.

Work has moved from being a place to an activity. Capabilities are required for flexi-time and working from home. Robotics can help facilitate this by performing the low-value manual tasks that keep people in the office, It can also accelerate your move to cloud-based technologies.

To attract the staff, give them an environment that allows them to focus on the law, growing your revenues and improving your customer’s experiences.

HOW IS ROBOTICS RELEVANT TO ME, AS A MANAGING PARTNER OF A LAW FIRM?

You want to innovate and grow your firm and need technology to support your ambitions. It can be hard to convince your partners to invest in long-term and risky technology projects. Robotics is an easy technology to start your digital transformation journey. It works with your existing IT systems and doesn’t require integration or APIs to be built. Your return on investment is quick – allowing you to trial new ideas and evolve the ones that show promise.

HOW WILL ROBOTICS HELP ME IDENTIFY NEW PRODUCTS AND OFFERS I CAN USE TO GROW MY LAW FIRM?

Legal firms hold an enormous amount of customer data but it is not easy to extract it from traditional IT systems. For example couples who purchase a house are often starting a family and may be interested in creating a will a few months later. Robotics is able to access your customer data using your existing screens and reports – allowing you to analyse data to search for these patterns and proactively offer services.

I’VE READ ABOUT AI TOOLS THAT ARE REPLACING JOBS TODAY. HOW DOES ROBOTICS FACTOR INTO THIS?

Artificial Intelligence is a powerful technology that aims to simulate human thought. The technology isn’t there yet, so current technology is being used to identify and deal with complex data patterns. AI requires training and this requires a large volume of data. AI requires interfaces to access existing IT systems and the results must be communicated in a way that affects the service your customer receives.

If you think of AI as the brains, think of Robotics as the hands. Robotics performs work as humans do today, accessing IT systems (including spreadsheets, websites, and email) to complete processes which deliver value to your customers. Robots don’t require interfaces; they access the screens and reports that your staff use. Robotics links into the most common AI platforms enabling you to introduce AI into your business processes.

Robotics – also called Robotic Process automation – helps you reduce the manual work involved in administration. It is a technology that can be applied to any number of processes across your firm, reducing errors, increasing profits and improving customer satisfaction.

WHAT DO MOST LAW FIRMS START WITH, WHEN THEY ARE LOOKING TO INTRODUCE ROBOTICS?

Most firms want to start with a relatively low-risk process that can have a significant impact to the firm. The most common process is customer on-boarding. Centralising and automating this process has benefits across the firm. If on-boarding data is entered incorrectly, it can affect any number of transactions across the firm. Getting this right is only part of the benefits though, it also: eliminates admin work, responds to customers after normal working hours, ensures compliance with financial regulation such as anti-money laundering.

There are also softer benefits, such as reducing conflicts with customers who don’t appreciate the additional scrutiny caused by regulations.

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