Lauren Solomonson is a lawyer at Victorian boutique Safewill Legal, which is a finalist for the Innovator of the Year Firm category at the upcoming Women in Law Awards.

Speaking recently on The Boutique Lawyer Show, Ms Solomonson revealed how Safewill transitioned to paperless whilst working in a paper-heavy sector of law, as well as how the wills and estates sector is becoming more digital overall.

Despite it being a fairly drastic shift, Safewill has had to face little hurdles in transitioning to paperless.

“Particularly post-pandemic, when electronic witnessing and signing provisions became the norm, clients weren’t able to go into a physical office due to lockdown restrictions. That’s just carried on. Now, that’s the new way of doing things. Overall, I think it’s been received fairly well. Our internal processes are constantly being aided by technology. We have an online asset and liability questionnaire, which we get some of our clients to fill in if they’re comfortable doing so,” Ms Solomonson said.

“We also have an online tool [that] qualifies whether someone might need a grant of probate, and internally, our practice management system, we have all our precedents, which are made by the lawyers and the team. We’re all responsible for keeping our practice management system up to date, and then our precedents auto-populate using that data for maximum efficiency. It helps everyone at the end of the day.

“We can do our job better and quicker by automating certain aspects, and then the clients get their grant of probate quicker. They’re not sitting around for months waiting for someone to post something here, receive it back, print it out, [and] post it for review. It certainly does cut down on time.”

Saving time allows Safewill to service a higher number of clients — and Ms Solomonson said that it’s unlikely firms, at least in the wills and estates space, will go backwards post-pandemic.

VIEW ALL

“Pre-pandemic, I would’ve said we were at the very back of the queue in terms of turning to electronic signing and witnessing. Some of the courts didn’t yet have an online portal for doing notices or launching applications, but the pandemic forced everyone’s hand to come to the game in that regard. Nowadays, I think a lot of firms have stuck with the new provisions that we have for signing electronic documents and witnessing them because it just has had such a positive uptake with clients,” she explained.

“They really do appreciate having that option. It’s hard to see a lot of firms going backwards. That being said, there are still some very traditionally set-in-their-way solicitors who like having everything on paper. They still want us to send documents to them physically if we’re releasing an original will, something like that. There’s always going to be some people who are just reluctant to change, but overall, it’s been a really good progressive time for the wills and estates practice area.”

As this sector of law becomes more evolved and modern, wills and estates lawyers should look to engage with their community and clients, advised Ms Solomonson.

“There’s a large part that we have to play in educating people on the importance of having a will and powers of attorney if that applies to them. It’s something that people really don’t like talking about. Death is a very awkward subject, and it’s not something that a lot of people just sit down one night, and they’re like, ‘Hey, let’s talk about what’s going to happen when we’re not here.’ I think we all have a part to play in educating everyday Australians on the importance of those estate planning documents,” she added.

“You’ve always got to look at what is going to make the legal experience the best for the client. Whether it’s something that needs to be done efficiently, whether it’s servicing a client who doesn’t live near your office, finding ways to help them through whatever legal matter they’re going through in a way that best suits them, and that’s where we’ve really seen that uptake in people wanting Zoom appointments, callbacks.”

There is also an increasing amount of innovation coming through the wills and estates space — from paperless working practices to more efficient practice management systems.

“I think the uptake of electronic witnessing and signing will just continue to grow as people become used to those things remaining post-pandemic. There’s always going to be better ways of getting client data, getting that securely, and then using that to auto-generate the documents,” Ms Solomonson said.

“We really do pride ourselves on our precedents and how well they work with the data we receive and then generate in our practice management system. Anything like that can be done to streamline the client experience, get them their documents quicker; I think law firms will just continue to upvote that type of software and technology.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Lauren Solomonson, click below: