With most firms and companies embracing digital documents and streamlined paperless workflows, the legal industry had been moving past the days of hours spent at the copy machine and massive closing, trial, and exhibit binders cluttering up the office. COVID and remote work further accelerated that shift as remote work has become the norm versus the exception. However, the creation of electronic document sets has remained time-consuming, error prone, and cumbersome—underscoring the need for additional innovations.
Today, on a call, upon showing our SetBuilder solution and how it can help streamline the process a firm had around creating trial binders, a managing attorney exclaimed "This might make it so my paralegals don't always quit!!!", while chuckling. The comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but the relief of seeing a painful, manual process be eliminated was genuine. Similar exclamations were made when they saw how easy it was to file documents electronically with the courts directly from NetDocuments, and how we can convert Word documents into a compliant PDF without additional steps. NetDocuments helps firms of all sizes leverage the power of technology in a meaningful way so they can Work Inspired.
- Kyle Kissell, Solutions Expert at NetDocuments
We are committed to making the creation and management of documents as seamless as possible for legal professionals. And, when we examined the process of building sets of electronic documents, it was clear it needed retooling.
This is why we created SetBuilder - part of our DELIVER solution. SetBuilder streamlines and digitizes the set creation process, making it exponentially easier and faster for legal professionals to create sets in a timely manner.
SetBuilder automates the process of selecting and compiling documents into sets and providing output in both PDF and ZIP formats.
With SetBuilder, cover pages and section headers can be created, documents can be reordered and renamed, the outline numbering is fully customizable, and an index page is created automatically. NetDocuments document links are easily added, or placeholders may be used to insert documents later. Entire groups or folders of documents may also be uploaded at one time from local storage and added to both the set and the NetDocuments document management system. Plus, the status of a set is fully trackable as it moves from In Progress to Finalized.
Finally, to make repeatable tasks easier, existing sets can even be setup as templates and cloned.
Since the release of SetBuilder, we’ve been inspired by the numerous ways professionals have applied the tool to their everyday work. These new uses have driven significant innovations in SetBuilder including ways to include emails in sets and Bates numbering within them, with more features to come!
Linking SetBuilder with other tools creates even more powerful automated workflows. For example, at the end of a transaction when the deal is closed, you might use NetDocuments CollabSpaces for sharing with clients or simply send a secure email link to other parties using ndMail.
As a litigator, you could share groups of documents with witnesses or experts in preparation for hearings, depositions, or mediations. For court filings, you might use the NetDocuments Chrome/Edge browser extension or an electronic filing tool like PacerPro, CourtDrive, or InfoTrack for uploading document sets to court electronic filing systems.
In virtually every legal practice area, document sets are always being created and shared, whether it’s with clients or other stakeholders in a matter. Isn’t it time you reduced the stress and time needed by automating that process and providing a better end product to your clients?
We’ve heard of so many uses that we never even envisioned, so we thought we should share them with the greater legal community to get your creative juices flowing. Below are ideas for how to leverage documents sets within not only your legal teams, but also your administrative teams.
If you would like more information on how to leverage SetBuilder to save time and improve the creation of electronic document sets in your practice, download the SetBuilder brochure or schedule a demo with NetDocuments.