Here is a headline from a recent article about event X.  Here is an expression of disconcert over event X.  Here is a flimsy and overreaching analogy between event X and legal industry condition Y.  Here is an ill-fitting causal connection between X and Y, expressed with a metaphysical certainty not supported by the facts in evidence.  Here is a brief pause for the audience to consider the grave and far-reaching implications of the foregoing.  Here is a statement concluding that the legal industry just needs to buy more Z in order to resolve condition Y and prevent recurrence of X. 

Signed, Person, who happens to be CXO or VP of Marketing for Company Z and who is just writing this self-interested, time-sucking contrivance so you will buy his/her stuff.

 [And here, growing quietly in the mind of the audience, is the sense that they’ve just endured an infomercial…one that’s light on the info and heavy on the mercantile.]

 Here’s our promise: we work at the intersection of law and technology and economics and process.  We’ll try to write mostly about people and events that land within a few blocks of that intersection.  And we’ll try not to prescribe what we do as the remedy for everything from the financial meltdown to rogue, killer asteroids to the deforestation of the Amazon basin (although…now that we think about it, your firm or department would almost certainly use less paper if you signed onto Brightleaf).  

 We want you to buy our stuff too.  It’s pretty awesome, document automating stuff. We just don’t feel like we should try to lure you into thinking that everything under the sun is referendum on that stuff.

In the post above, Rees touched on something that’s very important to us:  Brightleaf is a document automation platform, not just a document assembly application.    While it’s easy for any company to claim this (especially if they’ve been reading our website), the term “document automation platform” has a very specific structural meaning.

Document automation platforms combine three main components:  

1. Applications (such as document assembly or document analysis or template creation) that automate repetitive, process-intensive legal work;
2. Process automation engines that enable collaboration and workflow and compliance by allowing documents to “go” where they’re supposed to, when they’re supposed to; and,
3. Powerful and secure database technologies that interconnect readily with existing systems so that clients have complete control over document privacy and retention.

Each of these components, by themselves, provides law firms and legal departments with huge value.  But by combining them, real document automation platforms can fundamentally transform efficiencies and economics at those departments and firms.

For more information, feel free to contact us anytime at info@brightleaf.com.

Lynne, a former Proskauer/ Brown Rudnick associate, is Brightleaf’s new Director of Client Strategic Processes.  She’ll be working with our large firm clients to help them automate the way they create and approve and manage their transaction documents and free themselves from the strictures of their exisiting economics.  Lynne’s previous life gave her an up-close look at the some of the labor-intensive sausage factory processes that corporate clients increasingly disfavor in their outside counsel.  Now she gets to help re-form those processes.

We’re fortunate to have Lynne on our side.  BigLaw’s loss is our gain…which is ultimately BigLaw’s gain too!.

Article here.

Full article here.

When I began my summer internship at Brightleaf Corporation I had just survived the infamous 1L year of lawschool. I knew Rule 12(b)(6), res ipsa loquitor, and all of the other things 1Ls think make or break their careers.  But most importantly, I knew that the economy would pick up by the time I graduated and I would be fine. How did I know this? When I entered law school, they said that 94% of their graduating class had a job within 9 months. The world needed lawyers and I was going to be one. After all, I got good grades, made the National Trial Team and I was in a Clinic. I had big dreams of running down a Manhattan street in my power suit on my way to some major law firm where I would work my way up the ranks. There was no reason for me to worry, right? Wrong.

I came out of my internship with a completely different frame of mind. The idea that I would need skills that law school didn’t give me had never crossed my mind before then. Didn’t they want us to be prepared for our future careers? How had I never heard about the inefficiencies of law firms? How did I not know about the economics of firms?

In trying to answer these questions, one professor came to mind. My 1L Property professor had been the only one who had taken the time to talk to us about things we would need to know. In the “Last Ten Minutes” we would discuss a variety of issues, from interviewing to billable hours. So, I went back and picked his brain one more time.

He had spent years working for a big law firm down in D.C. While he was there, he suggested document automation to his firm and oversaw the implementation. Now, he teaches his Estates class how to use the system to quickly make documents from templates. So, I asked him why other classes or even law firms never discuss that? He responded with another question. What was your major in undergrad? I immediately saw where he was going with this and quietly mumbled “political science.” And there it was. Most lawyers do not have a background in science and are not as receptive to the use of technology as a result.

He also explained that this was the same basic reason as to why many law firms are not managed well. The skills we use as lawyers do not always translate to management skills. Does it really make sense that the lawyer with the most billable hours should end up running the firm? As much as it pains me to admit it, probably not.

Lawyers and law schools need to reevaluate what is important in today’s legal world. The advancements in technology and changing business models are lost on most of us. If we don’t make an attempt to catch up, we will fall hopelessly behind on the curve.