As your business grows, your legal work just piles up. Managing thousands of contracts, staying on top of new regulations, and handling daily requests can overload even the best in-house legal teams. Without the right systems, deals slow down, deadlines get missed, and risks build up. Legal automation helps solve this. 

It takes repetitive manual processes off your plate so your team can move faster, stay compliant, and help the business grow. In this post, you’ll learn about legal automation, why it matters, which tasks are best to automate, and how tools like SpotDraft’s contract automation platform can help you grow without falling behind.

TL;DR

• Legal automation allows you to streamline repetitive tasks like contract drafting, legal research, and compliance checks.
• It improves accuracy, reduces legal costs, and frees your team to focus on strategic initiatives.
• You can automate processes like NDA creation, contract approvals, and e-signatures.
• With SpotDraft’s legal automation platform, fast-growing businesses can manage contracts at scale.
• Automation accelerates business scaling by improving legal turnaround times and reducing bottlenecks.

What is legal automation?

Legal automation handles repetitive tasks, like contract drafting, compliance checks, and workflow approvals. It reduces manual work, improves efficiency, and allows legal teams to focus on higher-value activities, including risk management, negotiation, and strategy.

As companies grow, they face more complex regulatory environments. Thus, automating routine legal work becomes essential for scaling efficiently, closing deals faster, and staying ahead of risk. 

Source: Ramya Bhaskar via LinkedIn

Some common tasks that you can automate using legal tech include:

• Generating legal documents from templates, such as NDAs, sales contracts, and employment agreements
• Reviewing standard contract clauses for consistency and risk
• Managing approval workflows by automatically routing documents to the right people at the right time
• Tracking compliance deadlines and sending reminders
• Organizing contract storage and making documents searchable
• Flagging unusual contract terms for legal review

Modern legal automation tools, like SpotDraft, are designed to be easy for legal teams and business users alike, enabling fast adoption without a heavy learning curve.

Also read: The best In-house legal software in 2025

Benefits of legal automation software

Source : https://quixy.com

At its core, an automation tool frees legal professionals to focus on higher-value, strategic work. It makes legal departments faster, smarter, and more connected to the needs of the business. 

Let’s find out more about why legal automation is essential:

1. Higher efficiency

Automation speeds up common legal tasks like document drafting, approvals, and signatures. By standardizing templates and workflows, your team can process contracts faster and keep up with business growth.

2. Fewer errors

Manual drafting often leads to small mistakes that can create big problems. Automation reduces errors by using pre-approved templates and custom playbooks for contract review. This protects against missing key clauses, non-compliance, and costly legal disputes.

“The tool’s AI uses your playbook to learn your standard clauses and positions and then can “review” contracts, e.g., redlines to your standard contracts or the customer’s standard paper, and give you a redline of proposed edits you should make.”

~ Sterling Miller, CEO and Senior Counsel, Hilgers Graben PLLC
Ten Things: Creating a Good Contract Playbook

3. Stronger compliance

Automated contract workflows can embed rules and approval steps that align with internal policies and external regulations. Real-time tracking and audit trails make it easier to prove compliance during internal audits or regulatory investigations.

4. Better collaboration

Centralized storage and integration with the existing tech stack allow stakeholders, vendors, and other departments to quickly access, review, or approve any agreement. This not reduces data silos but also speeds up decision-making.

Also read: ​Breaking Silos: Uniting Contracts with Salesforce, Slack, and Coupa through SpotDraft

Which legal processes can be automated and which can’t?

You can’t use a legal tech solution for every legal task. Usually, automation works best when the task is predictable, repetitive, and rules-based. But human expertise remains essential when legal work demands judgment, negotiation, or creative strategy.

Source: Sarah Irwin via LinkedIn

Here’s a breakdown of what legal document automation can and can’t do for your business.

Legal processes you can automate

1. NDA drafting and execution

Non-disclosure agreements are highly standardized. Using an automation tool, you can instantly generate NDAs from templates, collect e-signatures, and store finalized documents, without needing a manual review.

2. Employment offer letters

Offer letters follow fixed formats based on role, jurisdiction, and internal policies. Automation ensures consistency in compensation details, role descriptions, and legal disclosures while reducing the risk of clerical mistakes.

3. Vendor contract approvals

Low-risk vendor agreements often use pre-approved templates. Legal workflow automation can route these contracts for approval based on value thresholds or risk levels, speeding up deal closure.

“The tool can be set up as “self-service” for clients, i.e., the client can log onto the system, select the type of contract they need, enter in a few variables, and the system will produce a standard form agreement ready to go.”

~ Sterling Miller, CEO and Senior Counsel, Hilgers Graben PLLC
Ten Things: Artificial Intelligence – What Every Legal Department Really Needs to Know

4. Standard lease agreements

Simple leases for commercial spaces or equipment can be automated using pre-built templates covering rental terms, renewal rights, and maintenance clauses. Custom legal input is needed only for non-standard terms.

5. IP Assignment agreements

Assignments transferring intellectual property rights from employees or contractors usually follow a set legal formula. Automation ensures timely execution during onboarding or project finalization.

6. E-signature collection

Once a document is ready, collecting signatures no longer needs human effort. Tools like SpotDraft’s e-Signatures automate collection and tracking while ensuring secure storage, drastically cutting turnaround times.

7. Risk flagging

AI-powered systems can scan contracts for non-standard clauses like unlimited liability or missing termination rights and flag them for review. This step speeds up diligence on simple deals.

8. Renewal reminders and compliance tracking

SpotDraft’s contract management system automatically tracks key dates, triggers renewal alerts, and monitors compliance milestones, eliminating the need for manual spreadsheet tracking.

Legal processes that still require human expertise

1. Negotiating complex commercial deals

High-value business deals demand creative negotiation to balance business goals with risk. No automation tool can replace the human insight needed to adapt strategies and understand the company’s goals.

2. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

M&A deals involve detailed due diligence, tax strategy, regulatory hurdles, and negotiation across many parties. While some checklist management can be automated, the deal-making itself needs expert handling.

3. Custom litigation strategies

Litigation depends on judgment calls about tactics, case law, negotiation with opposing counsel, and courtroom dynamics. Though eDiscovery tools can assist, crafting arguments still demands human skill.

4. Crisis management and high-risk advisory

In emergencies like data breaches, product recalls, or major regulatory investigations, companies need fast, strategic legal advice tailored to unpredictable situations. This is something no template or tool can automate.

5. Regulatory interpretation in emerging fields

Sectors like crypto, AI, and ESG compliance are evolving rapidly. Legal teams must interpret ambiguous laws and adjust advice as rules change. These tasks are far too complex for current automation.

Also Read: Legal AI: SpotDraft's Vision for 2025

How can automation help organizations scale?

As your organization grows, relying on manual legal operations can create bottlenecks. Manual drafting, endless email approvals, and tracking compliance obligations through spreadsheets simply don’t help scale.

Source: Nishant Bhaskar via LinkedIn 

Legal automation removes these barriers by optimizing processes that traditionally slow down business operations. Here’s how automated contract management software supports scalable growth:

1. Speed up contract cycles

Manual contract creation often requires multiple back-and-forths between legal, sales, finance, and leadership. Even simple deals can take weeks to close. With automated contract generation, pre-approved templates, and built-in approval workflows, businesses can cut contract turnaround times by up to 72%.

Faster contracting leads to quick revenue recognition and competitive advantage, particularly when responding to RFPs, closing end-of-quarter sales, or onboarding vendors quickly.

Example:
In a SpotDraft case study, Open Financial was able to accelerate contract approvals by 90% using automated workflows. By removing unnecessary manual steps, they closed deals faster and improved overall revenue velocity.

"Our most striking breakthrough with SpotDraft has been how much it helped during our investment rounds. The usually time-consuming legal due diligence process became seamless. We were able to filter and share contracts at the click of a button!"

~ Arjun David Alexander VP, Legal, Open
How Open Accelerated Contract Approvals by 90% with SpotDraft

2. Maintain quality and consistency

Scaling brings a greater volume of legal documents, and inconsistencies multiply when you manually draft contracts. Automation solves this problem by embedding legal standards directly into templates and workflows.

With standardized templates:

• Every NDA, vendor agreement, or employment contract includes the latest approved clauses.
• Risk is minimized because deviations must be intentionally requested and approved.
• Legal teams gain peace of mind that documents meet compliance standards without reviewing every version manually.

Example:
Using a contract automation platform, like SpotDraft’s CLM system, businesses can outline key terms in templates. This ensures all outgoing contracts align with evolving company policies or changing regulatory requirements without constant manual intervention.

"Every stakeholder sought quick contract approvals, but they were unfamiliar with the review and risk assessment process associated with contract approvals. Now everybody knows no contract can be signed or executed without going through our CLM tool, and every stakeholder has clarity on where the contract is in the pipeline.”

~ Nadia Louis Hermez, Legal Ops Manager, Next Insurance, Inc. 
Building a Robust Legal Ops Function with Nadia Louis Hermez, Legal Ops Manager, Next Insurance, Inc.

3. Improves various business operations

One of the most overlooked benefits of legal automation software is the ability to decentralize simple legal tasks. Without automation, every basic contract request clogs legal's inbox, delaying business functions.

Automation platforms let:

• Sales reps generate NDAs during the early negotiation stages.
• HR teams issue offer letters independently. 
• Procurement teams initiate vendor contracts from pre-approved templates.

These self-service legal tools free the legal department to focus on strategic, high-risk work, while business teams move faster without waiting on legal for routine tasks.

4. Reduce costs

Scaling legal operations manually usually means hiring more lawyers or heavily relying on expensive outside counsel. Automation changes that equation. By automating routine processes, such as contract creation, e-signature collection, and compliance tracking, you can minimize external legal spend and delay costly legal department expansion.

Instead, internal teams become more self-sufficient, and external legal advisors can focus on high-value, complex administrative tasks that truly require their expertise.

A Goldman Sachs report shows that companies implementing contract automation save around 10% to 30% of contract management costs by using automated legal tech.

5. Create actionable insights

Automation platforms not only make processes fast but also capture valuable operational data. Through dashboards and reporting features, legal and business leaders can track:

• Average contract turnaround times
• Gaps in approval workflows
• Renewal dates and compliance deadlines
• Risk exposure from non-standard contract clauses

This data helps you make smarter decisions about resource allocation, negotiation strategies, and operational improvements.

For example, using SpotDraft’s reporting dashboard, legal teams can identify contracts that consistently cause delays, such as non-standard terms, and work proactively to optimize templates.

Thus, using automation to create data-driven insights transforms legal teams from reactive problem-solvers to proactive business enablers.

Also read: A guide to the best legal operations software

Scale your business with legal automation: SpotDraft

Scaling legal operations doesn’t mean just adding headcount. Instead, it demands smarter, faster processes. SpotDraft is purpose-built to help organizations automate critical legal workflows and operate at scale without compromising quality or control. 

With SpotDraft, you can generate compliant contracts instantly using pre-approved templates, which reduces drafting time and ensures consistency across every agreement. Its real-time collaboration features enable your internal teams to redline, comment, and negotiate directly within the platform. This eliminates endless email chains and version confusion.

Further, the integrated e-signature feature allows you to execute contracts without juggling between multiple tools. The automation tool also offers seamless integrations with existing tools, such as Salesforce and Slack.

For organizations dealing with high contract volumes, SpotDraft’s Legal AI tools add another layer of scalability by auto-flagging risk clauses during contract reviews. 

Source: Tanisha Minev via LinkedIn

Conclusion: Time to scale your business using document automation tools

Legal automation isn’t about replacing lawyers; rather, it ensures their time is spent where it matters most. By embedding automation, collaboration, and intelligence into every stage of the contract lifecycle, SpotDraft lets you scale legal operations confidently.  Thus, it’s a necessity for companies aiming to scale. 

The result? You help your teams work faster, smarter, and more strategically. So, no more manual contract drafting, chasing approvals, or checking compliance. Let the automated tool do the heavy lifting.

If you're serious about scaling your business while keeping your legal operations tight and efficient, there’s no better time to explore solutions like SpotDraft. 

Start today to simplify your legal functions and scale your business effortlessly.

FAQs

1. What are the four types of automation?
The four common types of automation are rule-based automation, robotic process automation (RPA), AI-driven automation, and workflow automation. Each type targets different parts of legal and business operations.

2. What is an example of document automation?
A common example is automatically generating NDAs or sales contracts using pre-approved templates, where users simply fill in key details without manual drafting.

3. Will AI replace lawyers?
No, AI can assist lawyers by automating repetitive tasks, but it will not replace them. Strategic decision-making, advocacy, and personalized legal advice remain human-driven areas.