Statistics have shown that lawyers spend about 11.2 hours a week dealing with challenges related to document creation and management, with one in four workers failing to conform with document management and retention rules. Though these statistics have aged and may not be perfectly representative of the reality of law firms but these figures are still alarming, lawyers are familiar with the difficulty of spending many non-billable hours drafting and managing documents, with almost half of lawyers completing these tasks outside regular business hours. With lawyer burnout being a very concerning topic for the industry, it is crucial that lawyers especially in their startup and small stage utilize document automation software to cut down as many non-billable hours as possible to allow more time to be invested into client acquisition, billable work and firm development. This will evidently help profitability for firms and a better work-life balance for its members.

It is important to mention that there are some legal software that come equipped with some level of document automation capabilities, but we will focus solely on legal software built to automate legal documents with speed and accuracy while being affordable.

We have more articles about affordable case management software and more practice-area specific software already waiting for your review here.

HyperDraft

HyperDraft offers drafting tools for lawyers to streamline day to day processes to save up to 90% in drafting documents with customizable document templates that can be utilized to produce legal documents with speed and accuracy.

HyperDraft creates highly customized document templates based on forms currently being used in their users’ firms. This way considerable time is saved by avoiding the need to spend time learning how to code agreements and create document templates. The user is given a questionnaire for each document or a set of documents, and after answering the questionnaire to include relevant client and matter details, users can generate any legal document despite the complexity or practice area.

Ease of deployment is a major strength of HyperDraft, as users merely need to download and install HyperDraft, complete the initial walkthrough of the software, authenticate their user and they can start generating documents using templates already built-in specifically for them or from their library of standard industry forms. HyperDraft is currently integrated with multiple other service providers including DocuSign, Box, HelloSign, Dropbox, iManage, and Google Drive, and is working to integrate with more platforms. HyperDraft also includes additional features that are advantageous in the drafting process including redlining, AI-powered auto suggestions, signature packet assembly, a universal written consent generator, and more.

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Strengths

1. Since HyperDraft does all the set-up and customization for users, users can draft documents through the software as soon as they open the app.
2. AI-powered precedent and analysis tools provide unique advantages.
3. Intuitive user-interface makes training other employees and generating documents done with ease. Additionally, HyperDraft will begin to release training videos to explain how to best utilize all the powerful features they have to offer.

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Drawbacks

1. Basic data backup processes are built-in and can perform certain integration services (such as syncing with a particular document/file management system). However, HyperDraft has not implemented any data backup services to handle any backup and/or disaster recovery services
2. As this software is not yet cloud-based, it is not accessible on every device, unless the application has already been downloaded using a secure link. On the positive side, devices that have the application installed, can use it without an internet connection, as long as the documents and questionnaires are downloaded locally. HyperDraft will be offering a web browser-based version of their solution to users later this year.

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You can visit our marketplace here for more information on additional features, pricing options, trials and demos. You can also browse our marketplace for more exciting legal software that can change the way you practice law.

Avvoka

Avvoka is a document automation software that provides a new approach to traditional document automation tools that do not require word coding or a specialized team to set up the templates. With Avvoka users can build automated documents and make drafting documents as rapid as answering a questionnaire, with no coding needed.

To generate automated documents, users first set up their document templates by turning nonstandard sections or clauses into a questionnaire. This questionnaire uses the answers provided to determine whether to implement conditional clauses or change the visibility condition of a clause.

Once the user chooses to generate a document, the standard clauses will automatically populate. From there, based on instructions created by the user, the software determines what clauses to include based on answers provided in the

questionnaire.

For example, an employment contract template could be set up to only include clauses relating to benefits, only if the salary clause is above a certain threshold. In this case the answers the user has entered into the salary question will determine automatically whether any clauses should be added or removed.

This function allows templates to be able to handle any level of complexity as users have the ability to greatly customize the template by allowing users to implement conditional clauses and clause visibility conditions in templates with no complex coding.

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Strengths

1. Offers a free trial for users to test out the platform prior to making additional purchases.
2. Integrated with Salesforce, Adobe Sign, DocuSign, iManage Document Management and iManage Machine Learning
3. Provides additional tools to further assist lawyers in capturing live document data, track negotiation trends and reports across your contracts

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Drawbacks

1. Requires users to have training to be able to utilize all the capabilities of the software.

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You can visit our marketplace here for more information on additional features, pricing options, trials and demos. You can also browse our marketplace for more exciting legal software that can change the way you practice law.

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