About Common Ground Condo Law

Founded in 2020, Common Ground Condo Law is a law firm specializing in legal services for condominium corporations. Headquartered in Toronto, they are a virtual practice that serves condo corporations all across the Canadian province of Ontario, and they are dedicated to providing clients with meaningful, lasting, economical, and timely legal services.

Challenge: Having the Right Technologies to Support Their Work

Common Ground Condo Law’s founder and principal attorney, Chris Jaglowitz, has practiced condominium law and dispute resolution since 2003, representing condominium corporations before courts and tribunals.

As a lifelong tech enthusiast, Chris has always kept his finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest in technology, especially when it comes to his profession. “After attending the ABA Techshow for many years and seeing some of the remarkable tools in the marketplace, including NetDocuments,” says Chris, “I felt that launching a virtual f irm would be easier than it had ever been before.”

He was confident that with the right cloud-based tech stack at his disposal, his new virtual firm could provide a very robust and client-centered experience. Chris explained, “We launched our firm in January 2020, and among our tools at launch was NetDocuments. We chose it because the platform was so robust, and we could see ourselves finding ways to use NetDocuments’ capabilities to help us grow faster.” Optiable assisted with the firm’s implementation.

“We could see ourselves finding ways to use NetDocuments’ capabilities to help us grow faster.”

Chris Jaglowitz, Principal and Founder, Common Ground Condo Law

Another primary reason for choosing NetDocuments was that it integrates well with Clio, their chosen cloud-based law practice management software. Between using Clio for client intake, contact management, and calendaring, and NetDocuments’ powerful document management, version control, collaboration and automation features, the firm established a future-proof foundation for technology that supports their efforts to build and scale their business. Chris notes, “The two applications are better together. We think that this integration is going to continue to solve some our most obvious pain points.”

Automation within the DMS Brings Time Savings & Elevated Client Services

One of the tools that made an immediate impact on the team was PatternBuilder, NetDocuments’ built-in document and workflow automation tool. Lawyers rely on PatternBuilder to take care of tedious, repetitive tasks and free up time and expertise that can be spent on more strategic work.

Chris explains, “I went to law school to be a lawyer, to apply my judgment and provide thoughtful advisory services. There’s no question that using PatternBuilder to create documents gives me time back to focus on the type of work I love. It’s even faster than our previous document automation tool, which could only produce one document at a time.”

The firm currently uses PatternBuilder to quickly generate document sets that include multiple documents and have them automatically saved in the right matter workspace within the DMS — all from a simple questionnaire that staff can use, as opposed to having lawyers do that work. Because PatternBuilder apps can be shared via simple hyperlinks and the apps leverage the firm’s gold standard templates with PatternBuilder’s logic, their future goals include leveraging PatternBuilder automations on increasingly sophisticated documents and having client-facing questionnaires so that clients can generate their own materials, opening up new lines of client service.

“A big differentiator with PatternBuilder is that everything happens inside of our DMS. There’s no need to upload your documents to another tool.”

Chris Jaglowitz, Principal and Founder, Common Ground Condo Law

Notes Chris, “A big differentiator with PatternBuilder is that everything happens inside of our DMS. There’s no need to upload our documents to another tool.” Common Ground Condo Law notes they have already see an increase in productivity and a reduction in the time it takes to draft something like a new contract.

Getting Started with AI and PatternBuilder MAX

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way legal professionals work, but it’s only as good as the data you put into it. When asked about their AI strategy, Chris says, “As a firm, we’re keen on using AI in a variety of ways, and it makes sense to leverage AI where our documents and knowledge get stored: our DMS. We’ve already seen some of what PatternBuilder MAX can do, and we’re actively experimenting and finding ways to implement it more.”

Using PatternBuilder MAX for AI-powered automations, the firm has noticed a reduction in the time it takes to complete repeatable tasks. Chris notes one example, “Questions that would otherwise take about 15 minutes of lawyer time to answer can now be handled instantly by any member of our staff by running the PatternBuilder MAX app. This allows us to deliver the best results to our clients both faster and cheaper.” Combining AI and automation supports full endto-end document workflows compared to AI alone.

Though they’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what PatternBuilder MAX can do for their practice, Chris and his team are looking forward to what it can help the firm accomplish. “The AI capabilities we’ve seen so far through PatternBuilder MAX deliver the biggest bang for our AI buck. It’s been inspiring to figure out more ways to use it to solve common problems.”

A Simplified Tech Stack Makes a Big Difference

Common Ground Condo Law is dedicated to reshaping how condo legal services are delivered, and their strategic technology choices have laid a strong foundation for supporting their vision. With NetDocuments, Chris says, “It’s been great to be able to leverage the power of a single platform that does several major things. It’s eliminated the need for many small, one-off integrations between multiple tools.”

“It makes sense to leverage AI where our documents and knowledge get stored: our DMS.”

Chris Jaglowitz, Principal and Founder, Common Ground Condo Law

The firm is also focused on further aligning the NetDocuments and Clio connection for additional operational efficiencies. Shares Chris, “We’re working toward making better use of the tools we already have, because we’re already seeing the benefits they can bring, and they enable us to better serve condo communities across the province and make life a little better for their managers, elected directors, and homeowners.”

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