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The Impact Lawyers interviewed Dorna Moini, CEO and Founder at Documate, is a no-code platform for creating robust document automation systems

Throughout this interview, Moini tries to explain how automation is impacting the legal services of many law firms.

1.       Is automation taking off in the legal sector?

Particularly in the past year, we've seen lawyers want to collaborate more with clients and come up with alternative business models. Automation is crucial for both of these. Whether you're just looking to make your internal work more efficient and error-proof or you're looking to make client-facing tools to gather data through a web form and generate documents, tools like Documate are now an essential part of the legal practice.

2.       Are law firms increasingly storing their documents in the cloud?

Yes, there has been a huge shift in the past few years, and even the largest firms have recognized that, with the right precautions, cloud-based software can be just as safe as on-premise software. When we first started in 2017, we often got requests for on-premise software that was not cloud-based. Now, we almost never get that request. With cloud-based solutions, you get a lot of functionality at a much lower rate. As long as the vendor you've selected has made security a priority, cloud based solutions can often end up being cheaper and just as good.

3.       What services does Documate provide to a lawyer?

Documate is a no-code platform for creating automated workflows. Document automation has been around for decades, but we're focused on a broader category - the productization of law. On Documate, our clients build legal products to generate documents, expert systems, guided interviews, and legal apps. They can collaborate with clients and generate revenue through new legal service delivery models.

More importantly, we empower the lawyer to do it on their own. They have the power of functions like loops, complex calculations, and nested logic to your heart’s desire - with the ease and UX of a modern, no-code platform.

4.       Is Documate a useful tool for any type of law firm?

Anything that is rules-based can be automated on Documate. Our clients range from consumer focused areas like estate planning and family law to corporate transactions and even litigation matters, along with many other more niche areas. We initially built the platform for pure document automation, but because of the power of Documate's conditional logic and automations, we're seeing our clients using it to build expert systems and full-fledged legal applications, too.

5.       How does Documate ensure the protection of sensitive client information?

With law firms and medical practices around the world trusting Documate, security and data security is very important to us. As a result, we set up each of our clients on a segregated Amazon Web Services (AWS) database and subdomain, ensuring full data isolation. All of the data you collect and transmit in your account is encrypted in transit via Transport Layer Security (TLS). We use AWS to store your templates and data.

The database is encrypted using AES-256 technology, and AWS data centers are managed in accordance with SOC 1-3, PCI DSS Level 1 and ISO 9001/ISO 270001. For users who use Documate for payment processing, our vendors are also PCI compliant.

6.       What original value does Documate provide that other similar platforms do not?

The tools that exist are either powerful, but hard to set up (requiring IT or engineers); or they are easy to set up, but have very basic functionality. We provide the best of both worlds. You can do almost anything in automating decision-trees and documents on Documate, but we make that easy to do. We also have client-facing features like web forms and client intake and you can easily integrate paywalls like Stripe to collect payments from clients.

7.       What are Documate's goals for 2021?

Documate continues to grow within the legal market as the solution for building client-facing tools, and our goal is to enable lawyers to build their dream platform without ever learning to code. We want to help all lawyers build legal products and step away from the strict billable hour model.