Digital opportunities in conveyancing

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Technology and law firms. (Sponsored content)

The Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index revealed the average digital maturity of law firms across England and Wales is just 43%. If that sounds surprising, then knowing only 5% of law firms scored above 80% may come as an even bigger shock – or maybe it doesn’t.

Bronwyn Townsend, Senior Marketing Manager

The legal industry has notoriously erred on the side of caution when it comes to the digitisation of their workflow. Though, the combination of a global pandemic, changing consumer expectations, and more consistent and powerful digital tools have catalysed digital adoption in the last three years.

Law firms are now taking a digital-first approach to their business and reaping the rewards that technology grants them; time-savings, productivity, and better risk mitigation. The solutions these leading digital-first firms are adopting span the entire conveyancing process from client onboarding to post-completion – opportunities exist across every stage of the process.

What can we learn from these digital adoption leaders in legal? Based on the Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index, the opportunity for law firms who are yet to spearhead their digital transformation will benefit most from these tried, tested, and trusted tools.

1. For maximum opportunity integrate your case management system

Law firms who are making the most of every opportunity to leverage the available technology are integrating. By integrating your case management system you’re enabling a single source of truth for every matter. Ordering services and searches more easily, documents and results automatically returned, and maintaining a completely digital audit trail including communications and financials are all part of this.

Not only does CMS integration increase productivity, it also helps firms to mitigate risk and evidence compliance for PI renewals, and CQS and industry regulator assessments. Whether it’s pre-population to reduce rekeyed data, automation of results assigned to the matter, or synced disbursements for better reconciliation, firms are winning.

2. Automation is saving time and reducing risk

Pre-completion is the least mature area of the conveyancing process when it comes to the adoption of digitalisation by conveyancers, with an average score of 30% in the Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index. It’s also the largest and most labour-intensive part of the process which is why it presents one of the biggest opportunities for digitisation.

Automation of administrative tasks and pre- population can all have a major impact on law firm productivity – from the collation of documents to the analysis of search data and preparation of client- friendly reports. Automation is also playing a key role in keeping stakeholders updated. From Lender updates to ensuring clients are informed of key stage milestones, it’s saving firms hours every week.

3. eSignatures are a quick win

78% of firms are already using eSignatures in some capacity which is great. Though usage of eSignatures isn’t consistent throughout the conveyancing process. While they are being used broadly within the onboarding stage, adoption for electronic signatures for Land Registry and mortgage deeds sit at 16% and 11% respectively.

If you’re looking for a quick win with getting off the ground with digital conveyancing tools, eSignatures are one of the fastest and easiest solutions to adopt. They can also be used for other areas of law, so can benefit teams beyond your conveyancing department. As evidenced in the Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index, most firms are already using eSignatures, but there still needs to be greater consistency of how and where they’re being implemented.

HMLR announced they were accepting eSignatures in July 2020 and the recent announcement from Nationwide about their acceptance of eSignatures indicates a broader shift across the sector. If you're not using eSignatures at all, get started now. You only stand to benefit from their introduction into your processes.

End-to-end digital conveyancing is a reality and law firms who take a digital-first approach are seeing tangible benefits daily. Every law firm should be evaluating their technology and asking what more it could be doing for them. Digital is the way forward for conveyancing and it’s time to maximise every opportunity.

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