Start with the papers people still reach for
Begin with the documents your team uses most often. In small firms, that usually means a mix of contracts, leases, wills, letters of demand, instruction letters and conveyancing paperwork that gets reused under pressure.
Gather the live versions from the people who actually draft them. A secretary, candidate attorney or practitioner may be using a cleaner draft than the one stored in a shared drive, and that gap matters when you move into template libraries and merge fields.
- List every document type in daily use.
- Note who uses each precedent and for what matter type.
- Mark whether the file is current, duplicated or uncertain.
- Separate standard letters from documents that need heavy judgement.
Read each precedent for structure as well as clauses
An automation review tests how each document behaves. You are checking whether a document can be broken into clear sections, conditional paths and reusable clauses without creating confusion for the person who completes the questionnaire.
Look for places where one paragraph does too much work. If a clause changes by matter type, party type or property details, it needs to be identified properly before it sits inside a clause bank or conditional section.
- Spot repeated clauses that should become shared library items.
- Flag text that changes depending on the matter facts.
- Check whether headings match the content under them.
- Mark any paragraph that mixes instruction, commentary and final text.
Catch hidden data that can be captured properly
Precedents often carry facts such as names and dates in loose wording. Names, identity numbers, dates, addresses, property descriptions, company details and filing references may be sitting inside free text where matter data should be pulling them through in a cleaner way.
While reviewing, ask where each fact should live. Some details belong in a questionnaire answer, some in a matter data field and some in a review step before sign-off. That split keeps the final document consistent and makes version control easier to manage.
- Highlight every field that could be captured once and reused.
- Check for spelling variations in names and places.
- Mark dates, numbers and references that should never be typed by hand more than once.
- Note any data that must be checked before final output.
Strip out old workarounds and duplicated versions
Many practices keep several versions of the same precedent because nobody wants to break the one that still seems to work. That creates confusion, especially when a practice has separate edits for different attorneys, branches or matter types across Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban or Bloemfontein.
Use the audit to decide which version is the source document and which ones should be retired. Keep an eye out for copied clauses that no longer match current internal practice, repeated instructions in the body of the text, and old formatting that would not survive a clean automation build.
- Identify the master version for each document family.
- Remove duplicates that differ only in layout or wording style.
- Retire clauses that nobody can explain anymore.
- Check whether file names and version labels make sense to the team.
Test the document against a real questionnaire flow
Once a precedent looks clean on paper, walk through it as if a user were completing the questionnaire. This reveals whether the instructions are understandable, whether conditional logic is missing and whether the final output would still read naturally after data is merged in.
At this point, you are checking how the document behaves. A template may look correct in a folder yet still fail when a non-drafting user tries to complete it under pressure in the middle of a busy matter.
- Trace every question to the clause or field it affects.
- Check whether answer options are specific enough.
- See if any branch creates an awkward or empty section.
- Make sure review and sign-off steps are still clear after automation.
Set a clean handover into automation
The final stage is to prepare the precedent for implementation. That means agreeing which files move first, which clauses need rewriting, what training materials should mention and where secure cloud storage or access control matters for daily use.
For a small firm, this handover is usually a practical project plan with dates and owners. If the review is done well, onboarding becomes simpler, the build is easier to test and the firm is less likely to carry old habits into the new workflow.
- Confirm the final source files and naming rules.
- List any clauses still needing legal review before build.
- Identify who signs off the template before release.
- Capture training notes for users, admins and support staff.
