Building the Fair Term Checker App Part 3

Automation Mapper template to instruct app builder

In part 3 of the Fair Terms Checker video series, Verity White from Checklist Legal discusses the process of building automation and document assembly apps. She recommends using an automation mapper to keep track of the overarching details of the app, such as what documents are involved, what the output is like, and why you would use it.

Verity also emphasises the importance of considering the audience of the app. Is it intended to be fully self-serve or is it a tool for lawyers to help them get documents ready? Depending on who the audience is, you may need more or less information.

When it comes to mapping out the app, Verity suggests using tables, but notes that tables do not work well in Google. She recommends using Microsoft Word or Sheets if you want to map things out with the table headings staying intact. White also suggests using color coding to make the tool easy to use for team members.

Finally, Verity discusses the importance of naming variables, thinking about the questions, and considering the response types when building the app. Variables in a piece of automation or document assembly can take on different forms, such as text, number, multiple choice, or tick the box.

In the next video, Verity will show how she worked on the document output for the fair term tracker app, which is designed to help people understand whether or not the unfair contract terms apply to their contract relationship and how to check each term in the contract for fairness.

Overall, Verity’s advice is useful for anyone looking to build automation or document assembly apps, whether they are lawyers or not. By carefully considering the audience and mapping out the app using an automation mapper and color coding, you can create a tool that is easy to use and helps people achieve their goals.

Click here to watch the full YouTube playlist or watch part 3 below

Need help mapping your next automation or legal tech project? Check out our Automation Mapper tool

Want to take a sneaky peak at Checklist Legal's Fair Term Checker App? You can do that below

Transcript from video

Hello, Verity White from Checklist Legal here. We're talking about building apps and we are talking about specifically automation and document assembly or chat bot type apps. So I've taken you through, if you haven't seen episode one where I talked you through my mind map of pre-building, then check that one out. Then I talked you through the reason why. I don't think it's a great idea to do your first set of building in the app.

I think it's slow and clunky and there's a high chance you will lose your work if you don't love mind maps or even if you do, but you want a little bit of extra fun. Then think about using something like this, which is my little automation mapper. It's kind of useful because it well, I think it's very useful because you can actually keep track of the overarching details if you can see those there.

So it's really clear what it's called. You know, what the documents are that are involved, what the output is like, why would you use it? There's lots of concepts in there that you can fill out that make things really easy to understand. There's also this idea here, which I love talking about, like what kind of automation is this?

Is it intended to be fully self-serve or is it a tool for lawyers to help them get documents ready because they have very different approaches? If something's fully self-serve, you are going to need heaps of really carefully put together notes. If it's for people who don't have a legal background trying to create a really good legally binding contract, if it's just a chat bot to explain different concepts, again, you're going to need lots of helpful hints.

But depending on who the audience is, you might not need as much information for lawyers as you might for non-lawyers. So then that's kind of about the actual tool or bot that you're building. Then you can see here there's a bunch of tables. Now, if you are a Google user, then you'll probably be aware that tables do not work very well in Google.

They kind of don't. Well, from what I remember, they don't break well over pages. So use Microsoft Word or use sheets if you want to kind of map this out with the table headings staying intact. This is how I like to think about things from the intro. If you wanting to have the text, this is good. Also, if you want to do the thinking of the tool, but you don't want to do the building of the tool, you want someone else to do the building for you.

Say you just want to bash out the details and then have a paralegal or a grad or someone else help you to actually do the building of the tool. This is a really great way to share that information. And if you combine the detail of the, you know, this kind of content level detail with the overarching mapping detail and if you can match them up with the color coding, the ways you've got a really easy to use tool there for the for your team members to follow for you help us to follow along with.

So you can see here I've got I've started to kind of name my variables. I've started to have a think about the questions. I've started to have a think about the response types because things can be different between, you know, whether or not it's going to be a text. Is it going to be a number? Is it going to be multiple choice?

Is it going to be tick the box? There's lots of different ways that you can approach the variables in a piece of automation, document assembly, platform. There you go. That is the a quick overview of one way that I like to build out automation in document assembly tools. Let me know your thoughts. Do you think this is overkill or just the right amount of detail?

I actually didn't use this tool when I was building the fair term tracker. I just used my map here and then built it into the other platform. But I did do, which I will show you in the next video. I did do quite a bit of work on the document output that I'll show you in the next video, because the whole purpose of this glorious fair term checker app is to help people understand whether or not the unfair contract terms apply to their contract relationship.

And then if they do, how to check each term in that contract for fairness and some of the key things to look at. But that's not much fun. Like, it's helpful if you've got that information in a chat bot. But what we want to see is we want it to spit it out in a report so that we've kind of got a document and a record that we can start to build up internally within the legal team so that you've got a record of, of what you've checked and what actions you need to take.

So I'll take you through that in the next episode. Bye for now.