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.

Restriction on the advertisement by law firms according to US regulations

The advertisements by lawyers play a significant role in educating the public about legal issues and assisting in the intelligent selection of counsels. This, in turn, increases the opportunity for lawyers to expand their clientele. Towards this end, the standard set by the American Bar Association under its Model Rules of Professional Conduct allows for advertisements by attorneys with very few limitations as long as such advertisement is not misleading, deceptive, or false. The State Bars, however, have their own variations of this model rule that make advertisements by lawyers a little more tricky than it may seem in the first glance.

A few years ago, advertisement by lawyers was considered against the ethics and etiquettes of the noble profession of law. Legal profession was seen as a service-oriented profession that should restrain from indulging in mundane commercial activity such as advertising.

It was not until the landmark case of Bates v. Arizona in 1977 that advertisements became commonplace for lawyers to reach out to potential clients. The court held that the prohibition on advertisement to be anachronistic and unnecessary for maintaining the integrity of the profession. In what is considered a watershed moment in the history of legal advertisement in the US, the case marked a paradigm shift on the perception towards legal advertisement among lawyers and clients alike. Advertisements from being perceived as an attack on the dignity of the profession started being received as a necessity to effectively initiate relations between lawyers and clients.

Here is the brief outline of the rules governing advertisement by lawyers in few of the major jurisdictions in the United States and how one may innovatively use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and legal documents automation, as means to engage with potential clients without violating the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC).   

New York

In New York, the rules of advertisement are progressive and provide lawyers with a considerable flexibility to market themselves. The Lawyers may use graphics, sound effects, films, to advertise themselves with the use of appropriate disclaimer so that the possibility of such representation being misleading, false, or deceptive is ruled out. The commentary on RPC published by the New York bar Association also clarifies that all the communication made by the lawyers to potential clients might not be considered as advertisements. Even the communication made to potential clientele will not be considered an advertisement if it is not for commercial purpose and is merely for a general informational purpose. This, in fact, is recognized as a duty of lawyers to make the general public aware about legal issues.

The rules on advertisement categorically bar solicitation of clients through in-person or telephone contact, or by real-time or interactive computer-accessed communication if the contactee is not an existing or former client, or a close friend or a relative. This raises the complexity of the issue when it comes to the use of Instant Messaging (IM) systems. Please see here.

Washington

In Washington DC, the laws are even more relaxed than in New York. In a welcome move, the DC Bar adopted a progressive set of rules that have minimal limitations on advertisement. The commentary on RPC states that the rules that attempts to regulate more than imposing restriction on misleading, deceiving, and false information is unnecessary. With the absence of the regulations on solicitation, there is no ambiguity involved in the legality of using IM systems providing a fertile ground for innovation in legal services online.

California

In California, the revised and updated RPC, effective from November 2018 has well-considered the development in online marketing. The advertisements have to follow the general restriction of not misleading or deceiving the recipient and disseminating false information.

The regulations on solicitation in California are similar to that of New York. Solicitation of clients through in-person or telephone contact, or by real-time or interactive computer-accessed communication if the contactee is not an existing or former client, or a close friend or a relative is prohibited. In such a scenario, the use of IM system raises complex questions.

Florida

Florida noticeably treats advertisements with more suspicion than other jurisdictions. Florida Bar has a separate Standing Committee on Advertisement that is invested in maintaining compliance with the RPC. Any kind of advertisement on TV, radio, internet, except for the website of the concerned lawyer or law firm needs to be filed for review with the respective Bar’s headquarters twenty days prior to its intended use. Interestingly, however, as per the Handbook on Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation issued by The Florida Bar, internet chatrooms and IMs are not prohibited practices. The Handbook is quite exhaustive dealing with the breadth of issues including networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. If any of the information provided on these sites are used to promote the lawyer or law firm’s practice are subject to the lawyer advertising rules.

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.

No one can be 100% certain of what the future will bring for lawyers, but wise lawyers should ask themselves already today in which skills and areas they should focus more in order to be ready to the changing reality. The top answers are listed below:

 

Numerous work fields have undergone disruption caused by technology such as, tourism (Airbnb), financial services (Paypal etc.), public transportation (Gett, Uber), however,  the legal world has not yet undergone a disruption. The reason for this is that up until recently, there was limited use of sophisticated technology such as AI and automation in the legal world.
Some might say that the reason technology has not influenced the legal world until now might be related to the notion that lawyers are relatively conservative and don’t tend to be innovative and early adopters of new technologies.
There is a consensus that the way law firms are currently operating will change in the future, however there are many different opinions on when exactly the change will occur and what will be its scope.  

Lawyers around the world are dealing with the question – How would the Future Lawyer job looks like? How can we prepare for it?
While some lawyers want tech to help them with their repetitive tasks to free up their time to more complex, professional work are looking forward for the change to occur, others are intimidated by the legalTech and are worried that no work will be left for them. While no one can be 100% certain of the answer to the above questions, it is wise for lawyers to invest time enhancing the skills below more in order to be ready to the changes in the legal world that are coming due to AI and document automation.

The fact that you lawyers are reading this article on advertising proves that there is a huge alteration in lawyers’ attitude towards marketing. Today, unlike the past, the importance that lawyers give to marketing, advertising and business development has risen much controversy.

Strong  trend of shifting to online marketing amongst lawyers

In addition, even the platform in which lawyers choose to advertise themselves has changed. According to a survey published in “the marker”, lawyers reported on an 80% increase in advertising on online media and internet platforms as opposed to the newspaper and printed media platforms. The transitional trend from offline advertising and online advertising is a renowned trend and exists additionally in other areas. However, in the legal world this trend is much stronger.

According to the survey, there is an overall decrease of 9% in the offline advertising market in the years 2013-2014. On the contrary, there is a 24% increase in the online internet advertising world in the years 2013-2014. Combined the research above, we can see that in the legal world there was an 80% growth in online advertising compared to 24% growth in the general market.

Inbound Marketing

In the current competitive climate, “Inbound Marketing” has become a widely used buzzword. 

This technique is fundamentally different from the classical outbound strategy.  

How is the “Inbound” content strategy different?

Inbound Marketing is in the center of the customer, trying to figure out the following questions: who is the targeted customer? What are his needs?

When it comes to analyzing the needs of the target audience, Inbound Marketing strategy emphasizes the relevant service and advertising that is required.

However, the main difference is reflected on additional shared needs by the target audience without direct connection to the advertising service.

The focus of this strategy is the fact that our client’s journey does not start with his search for one ultimate service. Our clients journey begins much earlier, long before he even knows what service is required, and concludes after purchasing as an ambassador and a community member.

The Inbound Marketing strategy distinguishes between several distinct personas. For each persona there is a layout of the various stages in the client’s  journey of that persona and provide for each stage a suitable call for action.

HubSpot as a case study

A good example for using the inbound marketing strategy is HubSpot. The company specializes in Developing advanced, advertising and marketing management platforms which are expensive. The company chose to reach its target audience by offering a CRM system.

This is based on the understanding that the target audience is relevant to the (expensive)

Inbound Marketing strategy and is also in need of a CRM system at an earlier stage. Therefore,  the company’s “client journey” with the target audience begins early by offering a solution to the problem at no cost. This creates a trust in the company and the continued journey to acquire a customer is much simpler.

Marketing the services of a law firm

Marketing legal services of  law firms is a complex issue:

• there are many limitations under regulations,
• the variety of the marketing messages are very limited,
• legal online marketing cannot convey really “cool” innovative messages.

Frankly, Legal and law firm advertising is quite boring.

Applying the Inbound Marketing strategy in the legal field generates creative and innovative ideas. This sharpens our understanding that the first encounter with our client should be when I call him for a free value. This means that the beginning of my relationship with the potential client is not focused on me but on him.

It is much easier to advertise and promote a real and tangible value to the customer rather than only a “worthwhile” or “quality” service.

Use of “LegalTech” as a tool to apply Inbound Marketing

As we know, the Legalup software is used as an efficient tool to preserve knowledge. Such use is an internal organization system which allows lawyers to create their legal documents in an efficient way, while using “know how”.

Legal up provides a unique marketing tool for platform for law firms that enables implementation of the Inbound Marketing strategy in an innovative manner.  

Exactly like HubSpot, those law firms can offer their target audience tangible value around real needs and occasionally early on in their journey become a client.

Legalup is a tool for law firm marketing which creates unique digital wizards to create legal documents on Legalup’s website or on a new dedicated site.

Some examples:

The law firm “Shibolet’s” website – Jumpstart

Ehrlich & Fenster suggest wizards

All these Wizards Are based on LEGLUP’s technology and give significant value to the customers.

In order for a client to receive the document, he must leave his details and in that moment the office got a very warm hand and in addition the customer received a free value. The next meeting will be more businesslike and familiar.

Want to learn more about marketing tool that puts you at the forefront of innovation (in the LegalTech world?) – and produce hot leads with viral potential for you?

Contact us for any questions and clarifications

We’d be happy to promote you to the forefront of the 2019 marketing strategy!

How are lawyers actually using online advertising today?

With an astounding figure of  93 percent of people searching online for products and services, it is imperative for legal professionals to claim space in the virtual real estate. [Source]

 

And indeed, with the increase in internet penetration, there has been palpable shift in the mode of advertisement by lawyers – from traditional media like newspapers, radios, and televisions to marketing online.

Lawyers: heavy users of Google Adwords

Law firms marketers are heavy users of sponsored online research in search engines. A study on paid Google keywords conducted by the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform in association with Campaign Media Analysis Group found that the most searched keywords are actually legal terms:

• 9 out of the top 10 searched after keywords were legal terms, and
• 23 of the top 25 were legal terms!

[Source]

 “Lawyer” is the no. 4 world most expensive keywords

We see that the strategy of advertising through Google, based on keywords (Google Adwords) is very popular among lawyers, and as a result the cost per click for a legal term is astonishingly high. The word “Lawyer” is number 4 in the World’s most expensive keywords on Google Adwords advertising, with an average per click price of $54.86.

[Source]

One of the most expensive keywords in the world is “truck accident lawyer houston” with a price per click on 2017 of $389.25.

[Source]

 This is a saturated market. What’s next?

With the advancement of sophisticated technology in the legal field like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and legal documents automation, the arena of legal marketing will become more diverse than ever, providing lawyers with novel ways of communicating with their potential and existing clients and showcasing their abilities and innovative attitude.

 

 

Want to hear more about using legal tech as a marketing tool?

Want to learn more about a marketing tool that puts you at the forefront of innovation (in the LegalTech world?) – and produce hot leads with viral potential for you?

Contact us for any questions and clarifications

We’d be happy to promote you to the forefront of the 2019 marketing strategy!