MinterEllison levels up its automation project with Bot Week and no-code platform Josef

This past month saw MinterEllison host their much anticipated Bot Week, a series led in collaboration with Josef. Designed both to celebrate and expand upon the firm’s culture of innovation, participants attended sessions ranging from legal design and ideation, bot building, document automation and more.

The goal? To conceive and build the bots that will serve the firm and its communities all while awarding a prize or two!

The value of committing to automation at MinterEllison is clear: work smarter, not harder.

In the week’s opening panel chaired by Legal Operations Analyst Saeromi Kim, Senior Associate Carmen Juarez noted how effectively a Josef bot can bear the administrative weight of the hundreds of matters that pass through her desk on a regular basis. Thanks to automation, Juarez said, “I can focus on the lawyering aspect of my job rather than how many applicants I have.”

From a client perspective, Chief Digital Officer Gary Adler advocated for how bots can boost a client’s agency while maximising resources. “Automation gives [them] more options to reach out”, Gary said. “We’re finding clients often look for the first level knowledge insights via bots as it saves them time. For us, it saves on costs.”

With a week of workshops and learning ahead, Gary urged everyone to “invest the time in automation”. Since Josef “doesn’t require coding expertise, [builders can] start small and keep growing out… you’ll get so much time back.”

As the week progressed, countless ideas came to fruition and submissions began to pour in.

Judged in collaboration with the Josef team, the panel reviewed bots from all corners of the firm. First prize for Best Bot Built went to Paralegal Hugh Sanson’s Bateman bot, designed to help users determine their eligibility to hold Australian Director IDs. This bot was commended for its impressive user design. Alongside its multilingual support, the bot was packed with all the relevant information required to help triage users while directing them to the relevant governmental resources.

Best Bot Idea was awarded to Partner Craig Boyle, whose Right of Entry bot looks to provide employers with a timely tool to ensure they do not breach the Fair Work Act when faced with union disputes. The panel were particularly impressed by the idea of harnessing the efficiencies of automation in such high stakes environments. They look forward to seeing how the bot can be used when time is of utmost importance.

Reflecting on the firm’s collaboration with Josef, Bot Week participants noted how the workshops were “informative and eye opening”. How the “style of teaching [was] very engaging and fun” and how Josef bots are “making it easier to achieve our purpose [through] innovation”.

For many, the applications of the tool were surprising, with one participant observing: “I was not expecting [Josef] to be relevant to my work, but I very quickly found a use case for it!” With bot submissions targeting processes both internal and external in spaces ranging from risk, health & safety, industrial relations and finance, the possibilities of automation at MinterEllison are set to be exponential.

For Head of Legal Operations Charley Orr, automation equates “not simply to a buzzword” – it represents “a journey that the firm continues to embark on”, ensuring projects target efficiencies while keeping the firm’s communities at the centre of its work.

With Josef in their back pocket, the teams at MinterEllison are set up to achieve just that. Let the innovation continue!