The Surprisingly Long History of Legal Document Automation
Believe it or not, people have been trying to make legal document automation / document assembly happen since the 1990s (and the origins date back to the 1970s).
This begs the question, why doesn’t every lawyer use document automation software? Sadly, the answer is that lawyers weren’t impressed with the prior generation of solutions.
We won’t bore you with HyperDraft’s origin story (you can check it out here and here ), but that’s why we released a document automation solution (don’t worry, other legal automation tools are coming!) as our first product. We believe this is a category of legal tech that should have been loved and used by attorneys on a mass scale years ago.
Here’s the history of legal document automation so far:
1970s — Origins of Document Automation
The origins of document assembly can be traced back to two professors at Brigham Young University Law School. They realized that many legal documents were governed by decision-tree (Boolean) logic, and believed that such highly-structured, rule-based logic could be easily automated.
For example, if a client goes to a lawyer to get a Will. The lawyer will ask the client questions relevant to the matter to draft the Will.
Are you married?
If yes, what is the name of your spouse?
Do you have children?
If so, are any of them minors?
If yes, who do you want to name as their legal guardian?
And so on.
These BYU Law professors received a research grant from West Publishing and developed CAPS (Computer Automated Practice Systems), which was the first document automation solution.
1990s — Old Guard of Document Automation is Born
CAPS was re-birthed in 1993 as HotDocs, which was the first commercial enterprise within the document automation space. Contract Express (which was created by development shop Business Integrity and originally named DealBuilder) came onto the scene a couple of years later in 1996.
HotDocs and Contract Express created excitement in the legal industry surrounding the idea of document automation. However, the solutions’ time-intensive implementation and steep learning curve created hurdles to mass adoption. This spurred the development of an entire sub-industry of legal tech consultants to help with the implementation of these solutions.
2010s — Competitors Enter the Chat
A wide array of companies entered the field in the mid- to late- 2010s.
This time was also marked by the beginning of acquisitions of document automation solutions by legal research, practice management, or other legal technology companies. Contract Express was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2015 and HotDocs was acquired by AbacusNext in 2017.
Following these acquisitions, many solutions have had updates delayed, paused operation indefinitely, or have taken an extended periods to integrate into new systems, leading many users to be disappointed.
Today — Document Automation Field Has a Little Bit of Everything
The trend of acquisitions and new entries into the document automation space has not slowed and doesn’t look to any time soon.
The slow, steady, but continuing, development in the space has led many types of solutions to gain in popularity.
The majority of solutions can be broken down into a few categories:
Integrated Mail-Merge Products
Description
These products are basically mail-merge products with a few conditional (if/then) capabilities. These typically do not have any contract analysis, drafting, or external features. These solutions range from being word-plugins to stand-alone applications to applications within client or case management solutions.
Examples
Lawyaw, Woodpecker, Smokeball, and CRM mail merge.
Set-up & Implementation
To set up templates, you have to set them up yourself or pay for a separate service.
Ideal Use Case
These products are great if you are looking to automate very simple documents with little to no complexity or formatting and are not looking for any external, drafting, or other features.
“No Code” / “Build Your Own” Products
Description
These typically have the functionality of integrated mail merge products, but have additional conditional logic and external intakes. However, these features tend to be limited and cannot handle more complex formatting, conditionality, or reuse information in different circumstances. These are typically standalone applications.
Examples
Documate, Rally Legal, and the Form Tool
Set-up & Implementation
While these solutions have slightly more features and capability than integrated mail-merge products, they typically require an increased learning curve. Also, they typically require users to build their own templates and workflows or hire an outside service to do so.
Ideal Use Case
These products are great if you are looking to automate simple documents with little to no complexity and formatting, use client portals, and if users have the bandwidth to learn how to create and maintain their own templates and workflows.
Heavy Implementation, Complex Document Automation
Description
These can draft complex documents, but at the price of a steep learning curve. These solutions typically do not include external features or drafting/editing features. These are typically standalone applications.
Examples
Contract Express, Hot Docs, and Expressdox
Set-up & Implementation
These require an intensive implementation process which has bred a complete sub-industry of consultants and programmers to help to onboard organizations onto these solutions.
Ideal Use Case
Firms and legal teams who are looking to draft complex legal documents and have dedicated IT headcount with the time to handle the heavy implementation, maintenance, and user training or the resources to hire outside vendors to do so.
Full Service, Advanced Document Generation
Description
This type of solution can draft everything from very simple to very complex documents and includes external features (i.e. client intake, e-signature, electronic payments) and drafting/editing features, all with little to no learning curve.
Example
HyperDraft
Set-up & Implementation
Requires little to no user set-up since template creation, customization, onboarding, and maintenance are all included at no extra cost.
Ideal Use Case
Firms and legal departments who want the ability to draft every type of legal document, but do not want to spend considerable time or resources coding templates, onboarding their team, or teaching users how to use the software.
Conclusion
Document automation was one of the original categories of legal technology. However, the development of the tech in the category was slow and didn’t impress until recently. Incremental development in the space led the field to widen as various solutions attempted new features and business models. Luckily, recent development in the space has worked out many of the previous kinks, leading to increased adoption and excitement. In the words of Lizzo, “it’s about **** time.”
