Law School Document Automation: Assignment 1

The assignment below has been designed for law school legal technology courses teaching students about document automation and creating legal products with legal startup software. After completing this assignment, students will (1) learn the basics of document automation and expert systems; (2) understand how decision-tree workflows work; (3) strategically think about how to organize their legal app, and (4) be able to build a legal intake app or a full-fledged automation app with Gavel's legal workflow software.

Employment Discrimination Assignment

From: Partner

To: Associate

Re: Limited Coverage for Plaintiff-Side Employment Cases

Dear Associate,

I am about to head to trial, and I know you're taking 2 weeks off for the holidays.  The year-end is a busy time for our firm because many employers are laying off or terminating staff.  We want to make sure that our firm is available to anyone who is being illegally terminated.  So I've come up with a solution: we're going to use document automation to handle our intake while we're away.  The goals are to:

• Build a workflow that gathers all the information we need from potential clients;
• Tell potential clients as soon as possible if we think they don't have a case we can handle.

To do this, I want you to build a workflow on Documate (now Gavel) that captures the following information:

• Do they have a claim? Specifically, did the events occur in California? Were they discriminated against for an unlawful reason?  Are they within the statute of limitations?  Was there an injury?  Do they have enough damages? (We only handle cases with at least $100,000 in damages.  Is there reason to ask for punitive damages?
• If so, gather basic intake information that we need for the case, like the names of all parties and the basic details of the claim.

Please do your research on California employment discrimination claims under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act before building your workflow.

Please send me the link to the workflow when it's ready.

Want a deeper dive into these topics? Check out our law firm document automation guide here.