Documents are lawyers' primary work products and can be reused to save law firms time and money. But if a law firm does not automate document production, documents can be inefficient to produce, and the text may contravene the firm's best practices. Without some document strategy, client document requests will fill lawyers' task lists and distract them from high-value work.

Document automation software saves lawyers time in creating documents that satisfy client requirements. Leaflet Corp.'s online, collaborative document automation system, called the Leaflet Platform, turns existing Microsoft Word documents into reusable templates that incorporate client requirements and law firm standard clauses.

Leaflet Platform users create templates by adding objects to Word documents. The objects are standard clauses that fulfill client requests and requirements, and elements that represent document variables, such as dates, amounts, names and locations. Variable elements and clauses are associated with questions. The answers instantiate template objects to satisfy client requirements. The list of questions for each template form an interview, called a Leaflet, that can be stored online and completed on demand by clients or colleagues to create documents.