5 Tasks Legal Should Automate Now

If your legal team is constantly busy but never quite caught up, you’re not alone. The volume of work isn’t slowing down, but the systems supporting it haven’t caught up. And too much of that workload is still tied up in tasks that could have been automated years ago.

The issue isn’t capability, it’s time. As compliance demands grow, the gap between what needs to get done and what legal has time to do keeps getting wider. The solution isn’t to work faster. It’s to stop doing work that automation can handle better, fast and with fewer errors

We asked experts in the industry to identify five core workflows where automation can deliver the most immediate return, especially for lean legal teams. Their answers map a path to more effective work for teams of all sizes.

1. Compliance Tracking and Filing

If there’s one process legal teams should automate first, it’s compliance tracking, one of the most critical parts of governance and one of the easiest to get wrong when managed manually. Every jurisdiction brings its own deadlines, requirements and documentation, and what starts as a spreadsheet-and-calendar system quickly becomes a fragile patchwork under pressure.

Risks: The consequences of missed filings are real: penalties, reputational damage or even loss of good standing. Nearly half of regulated businesses in the 2025 State of Entity Management Report say they struggle to keep up with evolving legislation, especially across jurisdictions. The more entities you manage, the higher the stakes.

Automation impact: Instead of relying on memory or manual follow-ups, automated platforms embed deadlines directly into the system. Tasks are assigned, reminders go out automatically, and filings are tracked in real time. You can see what’s coming up and what’s at risk, without chasing updates.

Look for these capabilities in an automated solution:

• Centralized compliance task tracking
• Automated deadline scheduling and reminders
• Support for global filing workflows
• Real-time status dashboards
  

2. Entity Creation and Record Updates

Creating new entities and maintaining accurate records is foundational legal work but still largely manual. Logging director changes, registering new subsidiaries or updating details across jurisdictions often means toggling between spreadsheets, folders and a lot of copy-pasting.

For lean teams, this drains time and productivity fast. In the 2025 State of Entity Management Report, 68% of companies said they rely on teams of just one to three people to manage their entity work. When those few people are buried in manual data entry and version control, there’s little bandwidth left for anything strategic.

Risks: The risks build quietly: mismatched data, outdated filings, delays, inconsistencies. It slows everything from restructures to audits and creates risk when key information lives with one or two team members.

Automation impact: With automation, entities are created using standardized templates. Records sync automatically across systems and updates apply in bulk across jurisdictions. Some platforms flag missing fields, auto-suggest updates from documents and handle filing across jurisdictions regionally. Everyone works from the same, clean source of truth.

Look for these capabilities in an automated solution:

• Templated entity creation
• Bulk record editing
• Auto-synced fields across jurisdictions
• Document-based change suggestions

3. Minute Book Maintenance and Virtual Access

Minute books are one of the last holdouts of manual legal work. Some teams still rely on physical binders, scanned PDFs or scattered folders with unclear naming conventions. That’s a major problem for remote and hybrid teams, where access depends on someone being in the office or knowing where to look. 

Even digital setups can be clunky. Teams still need to rename files, track versions and correct naming conventions. Over time, gaps start to widen, and when audits or deals surface, the scramble to find the right version begins.

Risks: Scattered or incomplete records can delay filings, slow down deals or raise flags in audits and due diligence. Data security is also a big risk most companies don’t consider until it's too late. Over 50% of teams report rising regulatory pressure, yet many still struggle with inconsistent documentation practices.

Automation impact: Virtual minute books bring order and access. Documents are uploaded once, auto-filed by entity and document type and made instantly searchable. Duplicates are flagged, versions are tracked, and whether your team is remote or in-office, governance records are always secure, centralized and at your fingertips.

Look for these capabilities in an automated solution:

• Smart document classification
• Virtual minute book access
• Duplicate detection and version tracking
• Secure, centralized storage

4. Self-Serve, Secure Access for Teams

Legal teams often act as gatekeepers for basic information, like ownership charts, signing authority, director lists and registration records. These aren’t complex requests, but when legal is the only team with access, the requests pile up.

It’s not just a time issue — it’s a bottleneck. Finance, tax and compliance teams can’t move forward without information. Legal burns hours retrieving docs that should be easy to access and in some cases, other teams create their own unofficial versions of the data just to stay unblocked, opening the door to errors and version control issues.

Risks: When legal is the sole gatekeeper, decision-making slows. Requests get delayed and mistakes multiply when departments work off outdated or inconsistent records. This leads to lack of collaboration, and eventually governance workflows become too chaotic to control. 

Automation impact: A self-serve model flips the script. With secure, role-based access, teams across the business can search and retrieve the information they need, without waiting on legal. All access is permissioned and logged, ensuring compliance without compromising control. Legal stays in the loop, but doesn’t have to manage every request.

Look for these capabilities in an automated solution:

• Role-based access permissions
• Real-time entity data search
• Full audit trail for transparency
• Integrations with finance, tax and compliance systems

5. Ownership and Org Charts

Requests for ownership charts come in constantly from tax, finance, compliance and the board. But for many legal teams, generating a current org chart still means digging through spreadsheets, hunting down ownership details and building the visual manually in PowerPoint. 

What makes it frustrating is how often ownership data changes. New entities are added,  structures shift and shareholding updates trickle in. Every time that happens, someone has to remember to manually update the chart and that often doesn’t happen until someone asks for it. 

Risks: Org charts built by hand are rarely accurate for long. Someone needs to constantly monitor and update them or risk consequences on regulatory filings, M&A due diligence, etc. One in three legal teams still builds org charts manually, despite increasing complexity and scale, according to the 2025 State of Entity Management Report.

Automation impact: When ownership data is centralized, charts can be generated on demand, even during crunch time. Instead of rebuilding visuals from scratch, legal can create charts that reflect real-time structures, whether for a board presentation or a tax review. You can switch between views, trace ownership paths and export ready-to-share charts in seconds. 

Look for these capabilities in an automated solution:

• Dynamic chart generation tied to source data
• Ownership path visualizations
• Easy export options for reporting and transactions

A Strategic First Step 

These five workflows aren’t just administrative tasks, they’re high-volume, high-risk responsibilities that pull legal teams away from strategic work. They also happen to be some of the easiest places to win back time and reduce risk with automation.

You don’t need a full system overhaul to make progress. By automating the right parts of your workflow, your team can stay ahead of compliance, improve accuracy and create breathing room to focus on what matters most.