Scaling a Top Ranked IP Firm with Automation.

Manual docketing and intake processes were consuming senior paralegal time and creating risk of missed deadlines.

Information lived across email, shared drives, and three separate practice systems with no single source of truth.

Mapped the end-to-end matter lifecycle with practice leaders and identified five high-leverage automation candidates.

Implemented document automation, automated docket entry, and structured intake forms tied directly to the DMS.

Rolled out in phases with weekly office hours and a feedback loop into the automation backlog.

Recovered 50+ hours per week across the IP group, reallocated to substantive legal work.

Cut intake-to-filing time by ~3x with a fully traceable audit trail.

Created a repeatable automation playbook now extending into adjacent practice groups.

The firm's IP group was filing at volume, but the work around the work had grown faster than the practice itself. Docketing, conflicts checks, engagement letters, and client reporting were all handled by hand, often by the most experienced people on the team.

Before touching a single system, we spent three weeks shadowing the group: intake through filing, paralegal through partner. That map became the shared reference point for every decision that followed.

Structured intake forms that write directly into the document management system, so matter data is captured once and reused everywhere downstream.

Document automation for the firm's highest-volume templates, with clause libraries owned by the practice rather than by IT.

Automated docket entry with exception reporting, so the only items a human reviews are the ones that genuinely need judgment.

A reporting layer that gives practice leaders live visibility into volume, cycle time, and aging matters.

We deployed in phases, one workflow at a time, with a pilot group of paralegals who had veto power over anything that slowed them down. Weekly office hours kept adoption high and fed a running backlog of refinements.

Training was built around real matters rather than demo data, which meant day-one usage instead of a slow ramp.

With the IP group stabilized, the same playbook moved into adjacent practices. The firm now treats automation as an ongoing program with a standing intake process, not a one-time project.