When you enable LegalUp’s add-in, it adds new features to your Word program that help create your own legal documents automation workflows, thus increase your productivity and streamline your legal work.

1. Click Insert>Add-ins>Get Add-ins.
2. In the Office Add-ins box, browse for LegalUp’s add-in, or search for it by using the Search box. Then, click Add.

Signing Up

1. Click Insert>Add-ins>My Add-ins<LegalUp Add-in.
2. You’ll notice that LegalUp’s add-in was added to your Word upper bar.

     3. Double-click on it to sign up. Sign up by typing your email address and password you choose.

 

1. Upload the document you wish to transform into a wizard and then click “Create a new wizard”

2. The add-in will automatically map your document into its various clauses. Now it’s time to create the Q&As for the wizard and the changing texts in the document itself.

How to create questions – here

How to create to create alternative clauses and alternative phrases – here.

3. After you finished creating your wizard, you and all the users in your organisation that want to use it can access it from the admin area: admin.legalup.me. Just log in with your credentials and you’ll be able to see and use all the wizards you created there.

The refinement of legal practice

The legal practice demands specialized experience and knowledge of the law. Therefore, the impact of the technology differs across the spectrum. Here we analyze a few of the many advantages a lawyer can gain from legaltech: 

Document Management

The task of document management requires that a lawyer has exceptional organization, maintenance, knowledge, and time management skills. This task does not necessarily demand specialization in any area of law and can even be done by a non-lawyer who has some understanding of filing and indexing documents. Now, heaps of documents that used to take up multiple rooms for storage can be stored in the cloud and can be accessed securely by lawyers from anywhere! There are many document cloud storage service providers today who offer secure data storage (e.g., eFile Cabinet; Mind Tree).  This is an example of basic integration of legal technology streamlining systematic storage and retrieval of a firm’s knowledge.

Document Review

Similarly, partnership between lawyers and technology for document review also benefits the practice of law, especially for big mergers or discovery. Everyone can agree that searching through large amounts of data to find a single problematic area is nothing short of a nightmare for young lawyers. Advancements in predictive coding and machine learning have enabled lawyers to select the most relevant documents for close examination, making the lives of lawyers much simpler. Rather than threatening lawyers, these systems make lawyers’ jobs much more efficient. 

Due Diligence

Similar to document review for discovery purposes is the practice of reviewing documents in the process of due diligence. Here, a lawyer is expected to scan possible red flags in a transaction. There are elements like the Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), which analyses similarities in the meanings of words, that help discern what documents are the most relevant for a particular inquiry. However, the LSA has a significant limitation of not being able to distinguish the usage of a word in a broader context, not just in the context inferable from surrounding words. A sharp lawyer can pinpoint red flags from very limited information that might not necessarily follow a particular pattern. However, for any instruction-based system, patterns are important! Thankfully, these inventions based on LSA and machine learning are here to help.

Document Drafting

With the explosion of innovation, savvy lawyers are embracing Legal document automation for document drafting. Various non-lawyer enterprises have entered legal document automation to serve clients looking for affordable solutions for drafting deeds, wills, or other contracts. Lawyers have been able to build on existing knowledge and customize templates for legal document automation to reflect the individual needs of their clients. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that there are already multiple online platforms that cater to the users directly (e.g., LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer, etc.). While legal document automation has definitely put junior lawyers and law firms that provide unspecialized services at a disadvantage, the lawyers involved in high-stake transactions for their specialized knowledge will hardly be affected. On the contrary, integrating legal document automation services into a firm and charging nominal cost for automatically generated documents would actually ensure regular returns, keep the client base intact, and enable lawyers to devote their time to more specialized services.

Legal Writing

People often confuse legal writing with legal drafting, but they’re actually quite different. At first glance, it might seem that legal writing memos are fairly structured documents that could easily be automated, but they realistically aren’t structured apart from the introductory and concluding paragraphs. Legal writing is a service where a lawyer reveals their skills using criterion and laws that support their advice. The same precedent could be used in favour or against the advice being made and the lawyer sometimes could use various parts of the precedent depending on the situation. Therefore, it is definitely not as structured if it can be coded into a series of instructions while letting the actual lawyering skills take a back seat!

While it is not difficult to recognize that there are some unavoidable changes that are happening in the practice of law, one has to come to terms with the fact that it’s better to embrace the change than to push it away. If you fail to incorporate innovation into your practice, you face being left in the dark ages while the world moves into a more advanced, technological world. The smart lawyers will be the ones who are quick to adapt to the change rather than fear it.

March 3, 2019

MADISON, NJ – LegalUp USA, an innovative provider of internet-based (SaaS) legal contract and document automation software, is launching in the USA. LegalUp USA is the US distribution partner of LegalUp, a leading Israeli-based legal technology company.

LegalUp is a global provider of leading edge, internet based legal contract and document automation software that helps lawyers, law firms and corporate law departments become more cost effective, efficient and profitable. LegalUp is currently used by thousands of lawyers, law firms and global companies to automate complex, repetitive contracts and legal agreements.

LegalUp was engineered from the ground up to run on a modern, secure SaaS platform to automate the most complex of contracts and legal agreements. It provides an extremely friendly user interface to ensure rapid adoption, quick start implementation and ongoing support from trained attorneys and experienced technical staff, and highly competitive pricing.

“LegalUp’s solution has simplified a cumbersome process . . . Upon implementing the solution we were especially impressed by the professional and forthcoming approach of the team that worked with us to meet our firm’s needs” said Neil Stowe, Partner, Goldfarb Seligman & Co.

“We are excited to bring our award winning solution to the USA market”, said Inbal Baum, CEO of LegalUp. “Our team of lawyers and developers have created an automated legal document creation platform that is simple to use by law firms and businesses, yet extremely sophisticated behind the scenes. It allows lawyers to focus on adding real value to their clients, while LegalUp automates the core document creation for them.”

LegalUp USA Announces Board of Advisors

To support its USA launch, LegalUp USA has also announced its Board of Advisors: A.J. Bosco, Dave Lampert, Mathew Keshav Lewis, Stephen Piccininni and Paul Pickard.

LegalUp USA’s newly formed Board of Advisors includes professionals with deep experience in law, regulatory compliance, enterprise software, and the drafting and negotiation of complex legal contracts and documents. They will help guide LegalUp USA in shaping its strategy and defining the next generation of legal software innovation. The advisory board is comprised of the following individuals:

We initiated a set of interviews about lawyers, technology and innovation trends in the legal world.

Our first guest is Dave Lampert, a former president of HotDocs America and advisory board to LegalUp.

In this chapter Mr. Lampert is being asked about the concern of lawyers that adopting technologies might eventually make them redundant.

Mr. Lamper explains that instead of being afraid to lose their jobs, smart lawyers should be thankful that  technology helps them complete their job in a more efficient manner. Only if they will make themselves more efficient, strive for excellence and emphasize their value-added capabilities they will strive in the future. Technology helps lawyers focus on the high value matters, where their experience and judgment counts, while the simpler, mundane task to be automated.

Mr. Lampert argues that no one becomes a lawyer to repetitively draft, format and finalize legal documents and that lawyers can only benefit from LegalTech focus on what they are really good at.

Does your law firm envision growth in its future?

Does your law firm envision growth in its future?
If so, you’d better learn how to get along with the Millenials, if you haven’t already.

It’s in your best interest to understand the Millennial mindset to unlock the talents and passions of a new generation of attorneys. If law firms fail to integrate legal innovation and technology like legal document automation into their practices, they ultimately face a lawyerless future.

Law firm culture historically consists of a big office with a view, crushing hours, the billable hour system, imposing impossible-to-meet expectations on junior attorneys to churn revenue—but now, the old model is being flipped on its head. Smart, hard-working, and forward-thinking Millennials are changing law firm culture. In fact, 75% of the workforce will be made up of Millennials by 2025.

Who are the Millennials?

Millennials, also known as Generation Y or the Net Generation, consist of individuals born between 1981 and 1996 who are often characterized as tech-savvy and achievement-oriented.

Workplace culture is an important factor in keeping millennials engaged and excited about their work. Today, we are seeing a big difference in the average tenure of Millennials in a new job, and the legal industry is no different.

We identified three key characteristics of a workplace that are important for Millennials: innovation, efficiency, and “good vibes” or happiness.

If your law firm invisions itself being on top of the game, it needs to answer three questions: Is my law firm innovative? Is my law firm efficient? Is my law firm happy?

Innovation = Risk, audacity, and singularity
While it is true that the legal industry as a whole is relatively slow to embrace innovation, law firms in practice are usually quick to embrace anything that will make them more successful. However, in today’s innovative world you need more than superiority, perfection, or mastery to stand out from the rest. The acceptance of innovation like legal document automation means recognizing that things can be done better and more efficiently. Who wants to work in a firm stuck in the “dark ages?” Being innovative is the key for law firms intent on growing and staying relevant in an evolving industry.

As the digital revolution continues to take over, law firms must answer these questions:

1. Does your law firm have a client-centric approach? 
2. Are your firm’s clients able to access information about the progress of their legal matters online?
3. Does your firm have a CRM system?

According to the statistics from the Mckinsey Global survey on growth and innovation they found that:

• 80% of executives think their current business models are at risk to be disrupted in the near future.
• 84% of executives say that innovation is important to their growth strategy.
• Only 4% of executives have not defined innovation as a strategic priority and have no plans to do so in the future.

As the numbers show, innovative companies grow faster and more profitably than the rest.

Is your firm efficient?

In today’s world, coping with job-related pressure is really challenging. Anyone who has worked a full-time job as a lawyer knows that the average work day is not always long enough to get everything done. Nevertheless, you can greatly improve your productivity by adopting more efficient habits and legal technology like legal document automation. An efficient worker makes the most out of each minute of the day, prioritizing the most important tasks first.

Ask yourself the following questions to see if your firm is as efficient as it should be?

1. Does your firm meet your clients’ expectations in terms of speed in dealing with legal tasks?
2. Is your law firms practice management system ‘cloud based’ ?
3. Is there a material disconnect between the hours invested in a matter and what you bill?
4. Has your law firm moved from paper to an all digital workflow?

According to the statistics by Naz Beheshti:

• Happy employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy employees.
• “Close work friendships boost employee satisfaction by 50%.”
• 89% of workers at companies that support well-being initiatives are more likely to recommend their company as a good place to work
• 96% of employees believe showing empathy is an important way to advance employee retention
• Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability

A study by The McKinsey Global Institute shows that productivity improves by 20-25% in organizations with connected employees. A similar study by Gallup indicated that employees who are engaged in their work are 27% more likely to report ‘excellent’ performances.

In one of his recent articles, Ben Aston support the view that it is also more likely that when employees are emotionally invested in a company’s success, they will provide the best service to the customer, have improved morale, and take less days off from work. This results in better sales, higher profit, and happier shareholders.

How can this be?

Because happiness is an inside job. In other words, happiness comes from within a person and is reflected in their work. Companies that explicitly focus on new methods of improving the working environment, help their employees work in a way that allows them to work, perform, and live better.

Here are a few questions to find out if your firm is happy:

• Are your law firms employees valued and held accountable for the work that they do, rather than the time they spend at their desk?
• Does your law firm recognize their employees progress and reward them?
• Does your firm have good communication between employees and managing partners?

In the near future, change will shape the legal industry—change that will most likely be influenced by the millenials. As a result, firms that want to stay ahead of the curve in the legal industry need to be willing to adjust their mindset according to change, break away from the traditional law practice, and find better, more efficient ways to continually deliver value to clients.