As soon as William started his own firm, he knew he wanted to use software to increase efficiency. He started using Filevine’s automatic document generation in 2019 to create accurate and high-quality legal documents more rapidly. “We’ve always been on the forefront of document automation. I feel like we used DocGen to the fullest we could,” says William.
To generate complaints, the firm used 10 different templates to cover their most common kinds of cases. The template used depended on case type, jurisdiction, whether there were single or multiple plaintiffs and defendants, whether there were employers involved, and other distinctions.
“One of the first things that really drew me to FVDA was the potential to work with only one template.”
Using FVDAs clause library and conditionals, the firm is now able to generate all their complaints from a single template.
“All the different clauses that are possible, whether it’s a slip-and-fall, whether it’s an auto accident: it’s still all in one template. I customized Filevine so an assistant can generate the complaint, I can review it, and the correct clauses are already there.”
This new streamlined system has dramatically reduced the time it takes to draft a complaint and file a new case. Before FVDA, William would have to search through case documents to pull out relevant information, find the right clauses to use, and manually input information. The process took an hour, on average.
Now it takes 5 7 minutes. With FVDA, an assistant can generate a complaint using the data and conditionals already inside Filevine. William simply has to review the document before it is eFiled.
“It’s just been utterly amazing to use.”
FVDA has also revolutionized the way Franchi Law drafts demands. In the past, they would gather case information, sort through it to find the relevant data, and then compose their demand letter. But William realized the new technology allowed for a different workflow.
“I said, ‘Well, wait a second: why can’t we create our demand as we go?’”
Now, the demand drafting process begins from the very first moment of intake. The team gathers information like case summaries, medical bills, and records then FVDA automatically transforms it into a demand letter.
“We’ve done very, very complicated documents. Types of demands that would have required 3 or 4 different templates before FVDA.
Now we type in the information, and instead of it just being a note that we then have to go back to look at to type the demand, it is actually pulling directly into the demand, so we’re writing the demand as the case progresses.
By the time we get to the demand, we literally are just pushing the button to generate it. I review it, sign off on it, and it’s done. Demands are becoming super efficient and super simple.”