How intuitive automation is reshaping law firms
With an overwhelming number of technology options to choose from, Actionstep suggests prioritising solutions that offer intuitive automation to help you and your team enhance productivity — and elevate the client experience in the process
Technology is rapidly transforming the way law firms operate. The legal sector, often cited as resistant to change, is embracing the power of technology to improve the way firms operate. Our 2025 UK Midsize Law Firm Priorities Report in partnership with LPM confirms a shift — with 74% of midsize law firm leaders actively seeking new technologies to enhance operational efficiency, yet 73% still expressing a desire for more automation within their practices.
The overwhelming number of technology options on the market means narrowing your search to finding solutions that support your business goals and can be tailored to how you work can be challenging. Our key advice: look for a solution that offers intuitive automation (IA). Intuitive automation supports your ideal way of working and connects all your tools, processes and tasks at your firm so that the user can benefit from increased productivity.
In this article we’ll dive into the potential impact of IA is on law firms, explore its ability to simplify client delivery and firm management workflows, and explain how IA both enhances productivity and elevates the overall client experience.
What is intuitive automation?
Intuitive automation automates the connection between tasks and processes to make work more intuitive for the human user. Despite the availability of such technologies, adoption remains limited. Only 54% of firms have implemented process automation tools, and a mere 21% report widespread use. This gap highlights a need not just for automation, but for solutions that are easy to adopt, seamless to use, and directly aligned with legal work patterns: in other words, intuitive automation.
IA aims to simplify and streamline complex, time-consuming cross-functional processes by leveraging law firm best practices and supporting the user’s intentions to complete any number of repetitive tasks. This should feel like a system that anticipates user needs, adapts to preferences and changes, and makes intelligent decisions without requiring constant programming or guidance. IA essentially integrates the activities within all the tools and workflows at your law firm to support your ideal way of working. With time, firms using systems built with IA can learn from user interactions to improve their performance and accuracy. Ultimately this increases productivity, reduces errors and enhances user experience.
How do IA and AI work together?
Intuitive automation focuses on automating tasks and processes to make them easier to follow, more consistent and thorough, but most importantly understands the user intent, while artificial intelligence (AI) encompasses the development of intelligent systems that could potentially perform some of those tasks. Simply put, in a law firm context, IA provides law firm professionals with the right steps and actions to take based on your firm’s ideal way of working and what you need to accomplish, whereas AI can help you complete more content and knowledge-focused tasks.
What is IA’s role in a law firm’s technology ecosystem?
Intuitive automation plays a crucial role in a law firm’s technology ecosystem. Your technology ecosystem is how all the tools in your tech stack communicate and work together to get multiple jobs done. IA’s role in your technology ecosystem is to provide streamlined automation throughout those tools to enhance efficiency and optimise legal outputs. It acts as the connecting bridge between point solutions (that may or may not use AI) and your complete, fully functioning tech ecosystem. Here are some ways IA contributes to a law firms tech ecosystem:
Optimises workflow
Intuitive automation helps law firms optimise their workflow by automating repetitive and routine tasks. It helps identify what tasks can be automated, like client intake, document review and matter management, so that legal professionals have time to focus on other priorities and higher-value responsibilities focused on client outcomes.
Integrates with other systems
For intuitive automation to support workflows, it needs to be able to integrate with existing technology systems and tools within your law firm’s tech ecosystem. A solution incorporating IA can connect case management, document management and billing systems, to ensure data is being exchanged back and forth to complete an automated task with no errors.
Fulfils document management and analysis tasks
Law firms handle large volumes of legal documents as part of their matters and cases — contacts, court filings and so on. Leveraging intuitive automation alongside other tools can help firms automate the document management process such as extracting and merging information, creating and populating document templates, requesting internal or client review, managing versioning and filing documents appropriately based on the context of the document. This accelerates the entire document management process for a more streamlined client and firm experience.
Provides client interaction and support
There’s a notable gap in client-facing automation. Only 19% of firms offer automatic updates to clients, and just 12% facilitate online appointment-setting. These are prime examples of low-hanging fruit where intuitive automation can transform client experience quickly and affordably.
Speaking of client experience, IA helps firms enhance the interactions between your firm and clients. Some examples of how intuitive automation provides this type of support is by providing more prompt responses to enquiries, consistency with interactions and quality of work, automatic matter and case updates at milestone moments, and asking for the right information at the right time so your team doesn’t have to ask for the same information over and over. Ultimately these tools will enable law firms to help clients feel more informed and in control of their business.
Scales and adapts
Most importantly, intuitive automation solutions are designed to scale and adapt to the changing needs and ambitions of law firms. As a firm grows and evolves, intuitive automation can lighten increased workloads, changing processes and new requirements. It can also adapt to new practice areas a firm may expand into, handle diverse case and document types, as well as support evolving research needs so that a law firm’s tech ecosystem remains agile and aligned with their goals and objectives.
Why is this beneficial to law firms?
Incorporating intuitive automation can benefit law firms significantly when properly implemented into their technology ecosystem. Our report found that 70% of law firm leaders identify time constraints, and 59% point to service inconsistencies as primary obstacles to delivering better client experiences.
Intuitive automation addresses these challenges by streamlining processes and ensuring consistency. Firms can streamline their operations and workflows, improve accuracy and be assured they are delivering high-quality legal services to their clients regardless of the advisor or the matter type.
Adopting automation technologies like those found in modern legal practice management platforms can unlock new levels of productivity, enhance client satisfaction, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge in the legal industry. The momentum is already building — three-quarters of UK midsize firms actively seek new technology to work more efficiently. As AI adoption remains cautious, intuitive automation is emerging as the trusted, scalable path forward — bridging the gap between tech ambition and day-to-day reality.
Interested in learning more about how solutions using intuitive automation like Actionstep can support your firm? Book a demo here.
