Most firms have more work that could be automated than time to do it. The hard part is choosing where to begin.
A good first project is small, repeated and easy to describe. It gives the team a quick, visible result and shows both sides how to work together.
Start with repeated work
Look for tasks that someone on your team does the same way each time. Examples are sending a standard acknowledgement, copying details from an email into a case record, or reminding people about a deadline.
Repeated work is easier to describe, easier to test and easier to improve than work that changes with every matter.
Check four things before you choose
Before you pick a task, ask four questions.
- Does it happen often enough to matter?
- Can you write the steps in plain language?
- Is a mistake easy to catch and cheap to fix?
- Can a person review the result before it is used?
What to leave for later
Leave work that depends on judgment for later. The same goes for any task whose steps your firm cannot yet describe.
Be careful with anything that touches sensitive client information until the firm and the people building the system agree how it will be handled.
AI can help with sorting, drafting and summarizing. A person always reviews the result before it is used.
Common first projects
- Client intake forms and follow-up
- Deadline and task reminders
- Moving information between the tools the firm already uses
- Drafting routine messages for a person to review
How we decide together
In a diagnostic, we look at how your firm works today and set out what to improve first and in what order. The diagnostic has a fixed price, agreed before we begin.