Building on the benefits of legal workflow automation that we covered in our article ‘The Value Of Workflow Automation For In-House Teams In 2025’, the next step is implementation – tailoring automation to your in-house legal team’s specific needs.
A well-designed, customised workflow ensures consistent processes, reduces inefficiencies, and enhances legal service delivery. Allowing in-house lawyers to focus on the value-adding tasks that benefit the organisation.
This article explores the key steps to designing, implementing, and optimising automated workflows that align with your team’s objectives.
Step 1: Identify the Right Workflows to Automate
Not every legal process needs automation, and attempting to automate everything simultaneously can be overwhelming.
Instead, focus on:
- High-volume, repetitive tasks – e.g., legal request intake, contract approvals, NDAs
- Processes with frequent bottlenecks – e.g., matter triage, external counsel briefings
- Workflows prone to human error – e.g., compliance reporting, invoice review
- Tasks requiring multiple approvals – e.g., law firm matters with significant budget blowouts, engagements following a matter RFP
A popular starting point is automating legal request intake. Legal teams can use a structured workflow to capture complete instructions, and then categorise and prioritise requests based on complexity and urgency, reducing manual triage time.
Step 2: Map Out Existing Processes
Before automating, you need a clear understanding of your current processes. Process mapping helps identify inefficiencies, delays, and areas for improvement.
How to Map Your Workflow:
- Define the start and end points – Where does the process begin? What signifies its completion?
- List each step involved – Document every action, approval, and decision point.
- Identify stakeholders – Who is involved? What role do they play?
- Pinpoint bottlenecks – Are there unnecessary delays or manual handoffs?
- Highlight decision points – Which steps require approval, validation, or review?
- Involve your vendor – Legal tech companies have experience you can benefit from, as they have done this numerous times before.
A process mapping tool or a simple whiteboard session can help visualise workflows. The aim is to refine processes before applying automation.
Step 3: Choose the Right Automation Tools
Legal workflow automation platforms vary, so it’s crucial to select one that meets your entire legal operations requirements or integrates with your existing systems.
When evaluating legal tech providers, consider:
- Customisability – Can you tailor workflows to fit your needs?
- Integration capabilities – Can it connect with or replace current contract management, e-billing, and document storage systems?
- User-friendly interface – Can non-technical legal professionals use it effectively?
- Approval and notification features – Can it automate escalations, reminders, and stakeholder updates?
- Analytics and reporting – Does it provide insights into workflow efficiency and compliance?
Platforms like Lawcadia offer workflow automation explicitly designed for in-house legal teams within its broader legal operations platform.
Step 4: Build Customised Workflow Templates
Once you’ve selected the right tool, the next step is creating workflow templates tailored to your team’s operations.
Example: Automating Legal Request Intake
- Customised intake forms
- Standardised fields capture necessary details upfront (e.g., contract type, jurisdiction, urgency).
- Conditional logic routes requests based on predefined criteria.
- Automated matter creation and work allocation
- Requests are categorised and assigned to the appropriate legal team member.
- Workflow triggers and approvals
- Automated notifications keep internal stakeholders informed.
- Escalation rules ensure urgent matters receive immediate attention.
- Configurable and responsive reporting
- Dashboards and reporting allows tracking of response times, workload distribution, and bottlenecks.
The key to success starts with simple workflows and iterating based on team feedback.
Step 5: Test & Refine Your Automated Workflows
Even the best-designed workflows need fine-tuning. A phased rollout allows for adjustments before full implementation.
Testing Approach:
- Pilot with a small team – Run initial workflows with a subset of users.
- Monitor performance metrics – Track efficiency gains, time saved, and error reduction.
- Gather user feedback – Identify usability issues and areas for improvement.
- Iterate and optimise – Refine workflows based on insights before scaling.
Successful automation is an ongoing process, requiring regular reviews to ensure workflows remain aligned with business needs.
Step 6: Drive Adoption & Change Management
Introducing automation isn’t just a technical shift—it requires cultural change. Common resistance points include fear of job displacement, lack of familiarity with the tools, and concerns about complexity.
Encouraging Adoption:
- Communicate the benefits – Highlight how automation enhances efficiency, reduces workload, and allows more time for strategic work.
- Provide training and support – Offer hands-on training sessions and accessible user guides.
- Appoint ‘project champions’ – Empower key team members to advocate for adoption.
- Incentivise engagement – Recognise those who embrace automation successfully.
A structured approach ensures your team views automation as an enabler, not a disruptor.
Step 7: Measure Success & Scale Automation Further
Once initial workflows run smoothly, assess their impact and expand automation to other areas.
Key Metrics to Track:
- Reduction in turnaround time for legal tasks
- Decrease in manual interventions and errors
- Increased stakeholder satisfaction
- Improved compliance and risk management
- Time spent on reporting
Use data-driven insights to refine existing workflows and identify additional opportunities for automation.
Conclusion
Customised legal workflow automation is not about replacing lawyers—it’s about empowering them to focus on high-value work and alleviating administrative work. By systematically identifying, mapping, and automating the right processes, in-house legal teams can unlock efficiency, reduce risk, and provide faster, more consistent legal services.
Lawcadia is a legal technology company with a cloud-based platform that in-house legal teams and their law firms use to manage intake, matters, engagements, RFPs, and spend. It enables users to be more efficient, control processes and spend, and have visibility across the legal function.
An award-winning, easy to implement, intuitive and affordable end-to-end legal operations platform, Lawcadia incorporates no-code workflow automation and logic-based processes with a collaborative and secure interface.
Clients include corporate and government legal teams and over 150 law firms.
Founded in 2015, Lawcadia is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia with clients in Asia-Pacific, UK and the US.
