Repercussions? That has negative connotations! Any document assembly project can yield good and bad results. "Bad" results from document assembly fall into two categories. The "poorly implemented document assembly" list, which includes such things as:

• Having spent large amounts of development time on a system that still requires users to extensively post-assembly edit documents produced.
• Users wish to use the "old style" precedents, months after the system has been in place (a sure sign the system isn't user-friendly, or insufficient training was supplied).
• Systems that do not have all precedents programmed for a specific practice (one key benefit of this stuff is that all your precedents are accessible from a single interface or location!).
• Incorrect legal documents produced by the system (either it produces the content correctly, or you don't produce the content and have it clearly marked for users to check post-assembly).
• Having a system that operates simply by filling in the blanks (you could have used MSWord merging!).
• Realising that your system cannot be maintained efficiently, usually becuase you have no 'global templates' (letterheads, fax covers, court headers & footers etc...) or because every template has its own individual code (so changing Plaintiffs in a litigation system means you must re-visit every single template).

I am not going to address issues and solutions for the above list. If you are reading this section because you are "seriously" looking at document assembly, suffice to say that the general solution is: Start again and do it right, seek advice, or scrap document assembly if you cannot supply resources to "do it" properly.

However, for now, lets presume that the document assembly system was well planned, well thought out and had plenty of support from professional & support staff, resulting in a system that has all the variations of each template programmed, and is user friendly. Such a system can have the following repercussions:

• Reducing document production times, leaving support staff "bored".
• Reducing dictation & proofing times, leaving professional staff "bored".
• Leaving your firm in the position of "scrambling" to get more work to keep people busy, or letting staff members go or having to re-allocate them to another section in haste.
• Professional & support staff become "complacent" in their drafting and document production works, meaning that the system never becomes "better" with updated content and constructive criticism.
• Your firm only charges by the hour, meaning that reduced professional time on a file equates to far less billing per matter (imagine a lawyer spending 4 hours total on a winding up matter....are you going to bill the client $800-$1,000 in professional fees?)
• Your document assembly system allows far greater workloads to be handled by your current staffing levels, yet there is no marketing strategy in place to take advantage of this circumstance, meaning no profit unless you start sacking people.

In short, this list covers one major point....Lets just presume that my "snake oil" figures on document production times are true and that you in fact can create documents far faster and more accurately. What happens when you have 1 senior lawyer, 2 lawyers, 4 paralegals and 2 secretaries, but the system you built means that this section can handle 30% more work? Or 50%? Or 100%?

There are two major avenues to alleviate all of these problems: sack or re-allocate staff, or have more work coming in.

Workload & Staffing Ratios

A high end document assembly system will mess with your "workload to staff" ratio in a very large way. The trick is to ensure that it alters this ratio in a favourable way, rather than being unprepared for it. There are two ways to ensure this ratio change is favourable on the bottom line: Workload increase or staffing decrease.

Workload Increase

This is my favoured approach. Not for any sentimental reason, but simply because:

• There is more profit to be had from increasing workload as opposed to reducing staffing levels.
• Layoffs reduce employee morale in the workplace, which impacts on productivity.
• Reducing staffing levels reduces a firm's ability to handle "work spikes" that occur from time to time.

If you have 8 people working an area of practice and achieve a 25% efficiency increase, you could sack 1-2 of these persons. Or, you could market extensively and obtain new clients for that area of practice. Why does the "increased workload" approach generate more profit? When you invest in a high end document assembly system, your profit is largely limited by the number of matters you can put through your system instead of the staffing to handle the matters. Hence, it is only common sense to increase workload, rather than reduce staffing levels. If you can increase time spent -vs.- income by 25% (i.e.: +25% profit per matter) wouldn't you want to get more matters instead of retaining the same number of matters?

Dedicate some of those "soon to be freed up staff resources" to a marketing effort. Use your document assembly system as a marketing point, in conjunction with flat rate or minimum cap billing structure. For example, being able to offer a major debt recovery client (a bank perhaps? factored debt company? debt recovery company? large industrial credit provider?) a proposal which states you will charge 80% of scale for all undefended matters and a guaranteed 1-2 day turn around on instructions. The client will love having a (very competitive) fixed cost, and guaranteed fast action on their instructions. You will enjoy the profits of having a system that does most of the work for you. Also, having a "foot in the door" with such clients often leads to more lucrative work which in turn can be automated for even more streamlined profit practices.

The best part? 80% of scale would be double what your hourly rate would work out at. I have personally worked in exactly that environment.

Yes, its a lot of work and effort. It involves a shift in thinking from traditional law fee structures. It encompasses many things, but none of them are impossible - its all a question of whether this approach may be suitable for your practice.

Staffing Decrease

This may take the form of re-allocating staff to a new section, or letting them go entirely. Using the above example, you would sack 1-2 persons in the area of practice, possibly saving anywhere from $40-$120k for a secretary or paralegal, or perhaps around the $150k mark if your system substantially reduces the amount of professional contact time on a file (-1 lawyer, -1 senior secretary). This "saving" would (or should) be achieved without reducing the workload able to be handled by that area of practice and without any lowering of the work product. Perhaps you could reallocate those staff to a section in need of manpower. You will have ensured the most efficient running of Section A, while bolstering the human resources of Section B, with a relatively small investment compared with the cost of a salaried staff member or expensive hourly temp labour.