Is Clio document automation adequate for my firm? 

With more than 150,000 users across 100 countries, Clio is a popular case management platform in the legal software industry! It’s designed to organize and handle case details: tasks, deadlines, communication, calendars, projects and even team roles and staff management.  Read on to see how Clio’s document automation works.

Review sites like softwareadvice (https://www.softwareadvice.com/legal/clio-legal-profile/) and Capterra (https://www.capterra.com/p/105428/Clio/) show consistently positive remarks and ratings deep in the “4.nearly-5.0” range. Way back in 2008, Clio invented cloud-based case management software, and they’ve been getting better and better at it, ever since.

However, despite Clio’s terrific case management suite, its document automation module is limited to merging Clio fields into documents. 

Clio document automation is included in “Clio Manage.” It’s based on Word templates and fills variables from select fields with existing data. Each version of a document requires its own template and tools are limited to what Microsoft Word provides. The “product” is a Word or pdf file that can be populated (mostly) by Clio’s onboarding information, currently a manual operation—not automated.  

Setting up Word templates is relatively straightforward, but they don’t provide any more “automation” than the macros they’re based on. Macros are sturdy but incredibly dumb. They’ll only do so much. And copying them from template to template is a complicated chore.

All this may be fine for simple documents, but firms can quickly run into limitations:

• You can’t upload information to Clio. Download only.
• Integration is limited. Clio Manage only works with Clio.
• Not ready for client viewing—there are no guides or interviews to prevent clients from entering errors.
• Word’s tools are limited—most lawyers need special tools, beyond Word. 
• Weak “automation.” It’s only a mail merge.  
• Bad data is still permitted. Let garbage data in, you’ll get garbage documents. 
• Repetitious template editing introduces mistakes. 

So, does a Clio firm with Clio Manage have document automation?  Sort of–maybe.

Firms can surely make basic documents with Clio’s Clio Manage. But … nearly everyone runs into its limitations and risks errors, wasted time, and lost money with it. 

Enter Knackly!

In August 2021, after many months of collaboration, Knackly was approved as Clio’s first, fully-integrated document automation platform! We made use of our advanced architecture to provide Clio customers with a state-of-the-art automation system that was able to download AND upload information with Clio! This important step eliminates double-entry and improves onboarding immediately. 

Knackly is the only Clio document automation partner to establish two-way transfer of data, you can simplify your onboarding and document creation process down to four, easy steps: 

1)    Send your client a link to your online intelligent interview

2)    Review/approve their responses 

3)    Immediately, automatically complete Clio’s intake screens, contact information, and case details

4)    Immediately, automatically create error-proof documents for your case

All that without any proofreading, either! Proofreading documents is a thing of the past. You’ll have 100% confidence in your documents because all templates are universally editable. 

 The guiding principle at Knackly is three-pronged: 

• only handle data once

• stop repeating tasks that can be automated

• re-use your work, don’t re-create it

Every time your staff builds a new template in Word; types the same name in a different place; edits a universal typo in multiple documents; manually transfers onboarding information to a document; or spends a minute proofreading a finished document, they waste time and risk inputting errors. 

We discussed the state of the industry with Zack Glaser from The Lawyerist on our own podcast, recently. In it, we describe the “tiers” of performance available in document automation and how to determine what level of system you’ll need. Check it out.

https://knackly.io/3-tiers-of-document-automation-software-which-tier-is-the-best-for-you/

Knackly document automation is hosted by Amazon Web Services in a Level-4 secure data center with military/banking grade encryption to ensure your data is always safe and always available. AWS has a 99.99997% uptime rate. 

Click here and let us show you how we’re helping firms like yours improve their workflows, saving their time and money.