Engagement Objective

  • Eliminate manual data entry from the legal team's daily workflow.
  • Build a searchable, well-indexed document management layer to replace paper-based and ad-hoc storage.
  • Return billable hours to attorneys by handing administrative work to a trained virtual legal assistant pod.

About the Client

A leading legal services firm (name withheld for client privacy) approached Splace for help streamlining document processing and data entry. The firm's legal team — including paralegals and in-house assistants — was spending the bulk of every day on administrative tasks, leaving less time for legal research, drafting, and case preparation.

The Challenge

The firm's document-processing setup was outdated and almost entirely manual. The in-house team typed case data into spreadsheets and traditional document templates by hand — a slow process that produced inaccuracies and dragged out matter timelines. The paper-and-PDF storage layer compounded the problem: documents got misfiled, indexes were inconsistent, and locating a specific exhibit or filing routinely turned into a search-and-rescue operation.

The Splace Solution

After a full audit of the firm's existing processes, Splace proposed and built a tailored automation stack with a dedicated Virtual Legal Assistant pod operating it.

OCR-Based Document Processing

Splace deployed an automated document-processing pipeline using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert scanned filings, contracts, and case documents into machine-readable text. The result: paperwork went from a manual transcription job to a verify-and-route flow, dramatically reducing data-entry overhead.

Dedicated Virtual Legal Assistant Pod

A trained team of VLAs analyzes critical data points from the OCR-processed documents — extracting parties, dates, citations, financial figures, and other structured data the firm needs at its fingertips. The firm's attorneys and paralegals stopped doing manual data entry almost entirely.

Searchable Document Management Layer

Splace set up a logical, tag-driven document management system that organizes the firm's records by matter, case stage, document type, and party. Anything stored in the system is one search away — instead of one filing-cabinet excavation away.

Always-On Administrative Support

Beyond document work, the VLA pod handles client-facing administrative tasks — appointment scheduling, intake-form responses, status communications — at the speed of message rather than the speed of in-house bandwidth.

The Results

The firm shifted out of administrative survival mode into legal-work focus:

  • Attorneys reclaimed billable hours previously lost to data entry and document search.
  • Manual data-entry errors dropped sharply; document accuracy and matter-file integrity improved.
  • Project timelines shortened — the OCR pipeline plus VLA review compressed steps that used to take days.
  • Client satisfaction rose — appointment scheduling and inquiry responses moved from “when someone gets to it” to same-day.
  • Case disposition sped up measurably as the back office stopped being a bottleneck.

Conclusion

Splace's tailored automation and VLA approach gave the firm a way to operate at the speed legal work actually demands — without expanding the in-house team. Attorneys spend their time on the work that requires their training; the VLA pod handles the work that doesn't. Both sides win, and the client's bottom line reflects it.