Draft - Balamuth Law Case

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Transforming Estate Planning: How Automation Streamlined the Document Creation Process

Imagine a lawyer spending hours each week on repetitive tasks like creating personalized letters and tracking documents. This manual work took time away from client-focused tasks and business growth. With automation, she streamlined her workflow, eliminating the need to manually generate and email documents. This freed up hours daily, allowing her to focus on client service and growing her practice. Here's how automation transformed her business, boosting efficiency and creating more time for what matters.

The challenge: A Lawyer’s Manual Process for Estate Planning

For our client, an estate planning lawyer, each workday involved generating customized letters assigning important roles like guardians and healthcare agents. Preparing these letters required manual entry of names, roles, and details into templates, taking 30 to 45 minutes per client. This time-consuming process could have been spent on client interactions or other high-priority tasks.

“The thing that I'm needing to do is preparing letters. And the way I kind of imagine this happening, although I've never used any automation tool before like this, is that we would put together a table of what we need to be in the letters, basically in that table would, I don't know. Go into a machine, and the letters would be spit out the other end.”
- The Client

And that's basically what the automation did for her workflow.

By integrating Airtable, Zapier, and Make, the manual process was replaced with a streamlined automation solution. With just a few clicks, the lawyer could fill out a table with the necessary details, and the system would generate personalized PDFs instantly. It didn’t stop there—files were automatically stored in Dropbox, organized, and ready for distribution.

Old Workflow

Manually fill out client forms with names and roles.

Customize each document based on roles.

Save and organize documents manually in folders.

Print, label, and send documents by hand.

Email scanned copies of letters to clients.

New Automated Process

Enter client details into a table in Airtable.

Automation tools (Zapier & Make) generate customized PDFs.

Documents are automatically stored in Dropbox.

Emails with PDF copies are sent automatically.

Major Time Savings and Efficiency Boost

The impact was immediate: tasks that once took 30-45 minutes per client were now completed in under 5 minutes. The lawyer could now serve more clients with the same time, and the need for manual document organization was eliminated. Automation gave her the ability to handle a growing number of clients without adding more work to her plate.

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From Apple Pages to Google Docs: How We Automated Custom Testament Creation

Kelly is a lawyer who helps clients assign legal roles like guardianship of children, healthcare proxies, and first responders in case of emergencies. Her work is meaningful — but it used to be painfully manual.

“She’s lawyer, not very tech expert. She was using Apple Pages to create every document manually.”
– Ricardo Valdivieso

The integration that changed everything

To bring her workflow into the 21st century, Ricardo built an automation using:

Airtable as the entry point for client and agent data

Make (formerly Integromat) to orchestrate the logic and generate the right documents

Google Docs with dynamic templates

Dropbox for organized and trackable storage

Real pain, real solution

Previously, each client would take close to an hour to process. Now, Kelly fills out a table and clicks one checkbox. In under five minutes, the documents are ready.

“If she has the info, it takes less than five minutes. One checkbox. The files are ready in under a minute.”
– Ricardo

Automation with human nuance

The logic handles both individual and couple cases, four possible legal roles (guardian, healthcare, first responder, trustee), and even gender-specific language in the templates. All mapped using Make’s powerful branching logic.

“We have different templates — for couples, singles, each role — and even gendered versions for healthcare roles.”
– Ricardo

The cherry on top: scalability

Beyond saving time, the real upgrade was consistency and organization:

“Now everything goes into Dropbox, and it’s consistent. Before, they weren’t sure if the files were even saved in the right place.”
– Ricardo

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Automating Legal Document Creation Doesn’t Have to Be Scary or Risky — Even If You’re Not a Tech Expert

Let’s be honest: all some of us want is to get rid of the repetitive manual work of everyday tasks, especially in areas where paperwork is particularly voluminous. What if I told you that even a lawyer with no tech knowledge could fully automate her document creation flow with just a few clicks?

That’s exactly what happened with Kelly.

Wait, what do we mean by “automating legal document creation”?

We’re not talking about replacing lawyers or reinventing the legal process. We’re talking about taking repetitive manual work — like creating and saving customized documents for each client — and turning it into something that happens in seconds.

Kelly runs a small practice. Her job includes helping families assign legal roles for emergencies: guardians for children, healthcare proxies, first responders, and others. Each case requires multiple documents, often tailored for couples or individuals, and even with gender-specific language.

Before automation, everything was done manually by Kelly in Apple Pages on her Macbook. It worked — until it stopped scaling.

So, what changed?

Kelly was tired of all the manual work and wondered if she could solve it somehow with a little technology.

The central challenge was clear: How to reduce hours of repetitive work without losing the human touch that legal services require?

Here’s what we built:

Airtable became the control center — a form where Kelly fills out all client data.

Make (formerly Integromat) handles the logic: differentiating between couples and individuals, assigning roles, and triggering the creation of templates.

Google Docs stores the templates — smart, dynamic, and customized.

Dropbox saves the final PDFs with organization and traceability.

“She fills out the table, clicks a checkbox, and the documents are ready in under a minute.”
– Ricardo, Automation Specialist

But what about edge cases?

That’s where the system shines. The flow handles:

Multiple combinations of assigned roles

Gendered language templates

Different documents for couples or individuals

Even the challenges of merging files — like combining multiple PDFs into one — were considered (and are still being improved).

And yes, Kelly had no technical experience. She just knew what she wanted, and we helped make it happen.

“She wanted to use Apple Pages. I explained why we needed to move to Google Docs — for the templates. She was on board immediately.”
– Ricardo

Why did this make a difference?

Because it’s not just about saving time — it’s about creating a repeatable, professional, and scalable process. Before, Kelly could only handle a limited number of clients. Now? The system grows with her.

It’s more than automation. It’s clarity, consistency, and capacity.

You don’t need to be a tech expert. You just need the right partner.

If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t even know where to start,” this is your sign. Start with one process. One form. One checkbox. And watch your workflow transform.

Andrés

From Hours to Minutes: How Balamuth Law Transformed Client Communication with Automation

The Challenge: Estate Plan Notification Bottleneck

Kelly Balamuth, founder of Balamuth Law, faced a growing challenge with her estate planning practice. For each new estate plan created, her firm needed to notify multiple designated agents about their specific roles - whether as healthcare agents, trustees, guardians, or first responders.

"Each client might have 10 people that need to be notified," Kelly explained. The manual process was labor-intensive and time-consuming. "It probably takes 30 to 45 minutes to get it all together for each client."

With approximately four new estate plans completed weekly, Kelly's team was spending up to three hours each week just assembling notification documents. The process was not only time-consuming but prone to inconsistencies.

The Manual Process: A Web of Complexity

The notification process was particularly complex because each designated agent could serve in multiple roles. As Kelly described: "Nancy's been named as a guardian, and so is Don. Don's been named as a trustee. But Nancy hasn't."

This meant each letter needed custom content based on the specific role combinations. Adding to the complexity, some recipients were couples where each person had different designations.

After creating these personalized letters, the team would:

Print them on letterhead

Attach role explanation documents

Generate mailing labels

Include copies of official legal documents when needed

Scan everything for record-keeping

Manually file digital copies in Dropbox

Kelly recognized the inefficiency but wasn't sure how to improve it: "I'm feeling my way with this because I've never done anything like this before."

The Solution: Data-Driven Document Generation

Working with automation experts, Kelly's team implemented a streamlined solution that transformed their process:

Structured Data Collection: Created a simple table interface where staff can input all necessary information

Template System: Developed customized document templates for each role combination

One-Click Generation: Implemented a system where checking a single box triggers the entire document creation process

Automated Filing: Set up automatic saving of all generated documents to the correct client folders in Dropbox

The implementation required just 6-7 hours of consulting time, with the automation expert working collaboratively with Kelly to understand the specific requirements of her practice.

The Results: From Hours to Minutes

The transformation was remarkable:

Time Savings:

Before: 30-45 minutes per client

After: Less than 6 minutes total (5 minutes for data entry + 1 minute for generation)

Result: 85% reduction in processing time

Weekly Impact:

Before: 2-3 hours spent on document preparation

After: Approximately 24 minutes for the same workload

Annual time savings: Over 100 hours per year

Process Improvements:

Eliminated redundant scanning process

Reduced filing errors through automation

Created consistent, professional communication regardless of which staff member handles the request

Beyond the measurable time savings, Kelly discovered something even more valuable: "The idea of this is liberating," she remarked during implementation. "It's liberating."

Additional Benefits: Consistency, Scalability, and Peace of Mind

The automation delivered several unexpected benefits:

Improved Organization:
"Everything is going to be saved into Dropbox at the end, so they can keep track of everything that has been created," noted Ricardo, the automation developer. "Before, depending on who was doing that, they weren't sure if everything was hitting the folder."

Enhanced Scalability:
As Balamuth Law continues to grow, the system can handle increased volume without proportional increases in administrative time. This scalability creates a foundation for practice growth without additional administrative burden.

Reduced Stress:
With clear visibility into the process and confidence in the system's reliability, Kelly's team no longer worries about whether they've properly notified all designated agents or correctly filed documents.

The Ripple Effect: Exploring Further Automation

Perhaps most significantly, this project opened Kelly's eyes to other possibilities for streamlining her practice. "I'm excited about this," she said, "because I wonder, like, how many other things there are."

What began as a solution to a specific document generation challenge has sparked a broader conversation about process improvement throughout the practice.

Conclusion: Small Investment, Significant Return

With a modest investment of time and resources, Balamuth Law transformed a cumbersome, error-prone process into a streamlined, reliable system. The automation not only reclaimed valuable time for higher-value activities but also improved consistency, reduced errors, and created a foundation for further practice optimization.

As Kelly noted during implementation: "What gets printed is what's going out the door. Love that."

This case study is based on actual client experiences. The automation solution described was implemented in approximately 6-7 consulting hours, with continued refinement and support as needed.

Prompts I used

Using provided source materials (transcripts, interviews, data), help me outline a persuasive case study by following these steps:

Start listing all interesting quotes

Then list all interest concepts

Example: slack swamp of threads (meaning all messages get lost)

List all relatable pain points

List all a-ha moments

List all concrete results

Now using provided source materials (transcripts, interviews, data), write a persuasive case study by following these steps:

Start with a Relatable Pain Point

Begin with a specific, real-world problem your automation solved

Example: "How a marketing agency saved 30 hours per week by automating their client reporting process"

Focus on Concrete Results

Lead with measurable outcomes

"Our client reduced manual data entry by 90% and saved $4,000/month"

Include before/after scenarios

Show actual time/money saved

Include time needed to implement this

Tell a Story

Feature a specific client journey (anonymized if needed)

Describe their initial challenges

Show the transformation process

Include quotes from stakeholders

What’s missing: anonymizing. Bold for readability.