Practice may make perfect, but repetitive tasks are not considered a fan-favorite among attorneys. But there are tasks in every organization—no matter how mundane—that still need to be accomplished. The “Robotic Process Automation: The Next Step in Legal Automation” session of Legalweek 2020 in New York, offered with some tips on how bots can be used to help automate some of those tasks,
Cynthia Brown, director of research services at Littler Mendelson, framed process automation as more of a necessity than a whim, pointing to a changing workforce that finds employees—especially millennials—less willing to engage in repetitive tasks.
“We have a workforce coming in that wants to be challenged. They want to have meaning in what they do, and they really don’t want to do those repetitive tasks,” Brown said.
Pulling cases, for example, is something that might leave an associate feeling unchallenged but is just another day on the job for a bot. There are also automated chatbots that field some of the more basic or simpler questions that come in late at night online, whether its from a client or an attorney.
Michelle Dewey, who manages the national research team at Baker & Hostetler, walked the panel through a bankruptcy bot that the firm built in order to help field general bankruptcy and research questions such as rules, client pricing and memo retrieval. Constructing the solution required the firm to balance the present with the future, anticipating the possibility that the app could eventually be adapted for other functions.
“We needed something that would scale up but would also scale horizontally. We needed something that would scale across other practice groups,” Dewey said.
But that’s not the only challenge facing law firms who want to build more automation into their infrastructure. Organization is critical, and Dewey suggested that firms undertaking a bot project first draw up an extensive list of the various stakeholders involved, which can range from clients to internal employees and vendors.
Jennifer Mendez, director of knowledge management firm solutions at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, recommended that firms leverage their personal networks both on and offline to identify suitable vendors who can help construct the bot.
“I can’t tell you how many times we get incredibly valuable feedback that is honest and raw offline,” Mendez said.
The initial goal is to get to a “minimum viable product,” which is essentially the earliest completed version of a new project that addresses a few key priorities while being suitable for use by employees.
“Getting something that’s functional out allows you to build and continue to be better,” Dewey said.
But, to be sure, automation is not a solution for all of life’s little problems—just the routine ones. The right vendor, feedback or even employee buy-in won’t help firms if the task they are trying to address simply doesn’t lend itself to automation.
“You want something that is never going to change,” Brown said.