I want to automate government forms, but I don’t have time. Can I hire someone to build it for me?
Yes! While we pride ourselves on easy software that anyone can use, you have access to Gavel document automation experts (“Gavel Experts”) who can help build your vision for you. Gavel Experts have been vetted for their expertise, critical thinking, quality, and efficiency and start as low as $35/hour. They are often law students, paralegals and lawyers themselves.
Can Gavel be used for client intake processes in immigration law?
Gavel is the perfect solution for simplifying your client intake processes. Our client-facing portal lets your clients complete all their documentation via an intuitive intake form, so you can start working on the case immediately.
Does Gavel support the generation of multilingual documents for immigration law?
Yes. The language barrier is one of the trickiest aspects of immigration law, so Gavel provides support in 60 different languages so that you and your clients can understand each other better. Each workflow’s questions must be written in the language you want them to appear to the end user, but our platform will automatically change the language of your intake form’s buttons and instructions based on each workflow’s language settings.
Does Gavel offer help throughout the building process?
Yes. Gavel’s award winning customer team provides unlimited and speedy support for all customers, regardless of the subscription plan. Contact Gavel via phone, live screenshare, email at [email protected] or even via the Slack community for immediate support.
Gavel also provides live training and a 24/7 learning center with lesson topics and guides for various aspects of your practice and examples of how other practices and industries are using Gavel.
How secure is Gavel?
Because we serve customers in the legal field, security is paramount to us. All customers are set up on segregated encrypted databases. All data centers where information is stored are managed in accordance with leading data security standards, including SOC 1 - 3, PCI DSS Level 1, and ISO 9001 / ISO 27001. Gavel regularly undergoes third-party security and penetration testing and is compliant with local privacy laws and regulations.
The Best Way to Automate Immigration Law
Legal issues don't come with much higher stakes than immigration.
Immigration cases can be complicated. Handling them can require expertise in family and employment law, in addition to a solid grounding in immigration law itself. Immigration law firms need to find ways to streamline the often time-consuming data intake and client communication aspects of their workflows to free up more time for the challenging legal aspects of this field.
Gavel is the solution immigration attorneys have been waiting for. Our platform can automate the repetitive tasks that often come from dealing withUSCIS and other government entities by allowing you to build templates to collect client information, speed up consultations, and manage the generation of what can be staggering numbers of immigration forms. It also has powerful functionalities that can help you with client intake, document automation, and collaboration, enhancing the client experience and helping your legal practice manage its caseload effectively.
Specifically, Gavel is a software platform that allows lawyers to build questionnaires (also called “workflows”) that, when answered, auto-fill the appropriate government form or template. These customized questionnaires can be completed by the lawyer or client, as lawyers can embed legal guidance, videos, and explanations within them. A completed questionnaire is then one click away from being a fully completed legal work product. In this way, lawyers can use Gavel to “build a Turbotax” for their immigration practice and monetize their work at scale.
More than just client intake software, Gavel is a custom-made document automation system that helps legal professionals create workflows to streamline their immigration case management and document drafting. Let's take a look at how it can help you.
Why Automate Immigration Law?
Handling immigration cases effectively requires excellent people skills and exceptional time management. While there’s no substitute for human contact when it comes to client relationships, automating form-filling and document creation reduces the risk of human error and frees up time to build those relationships. It also frees up the lawyer to spend more time strategizing creative solutions for each client’s unique situation. Additionally, practicing immigration law can naturally come with language barriers, but Gavel’s automated document creation can also support multiple languages, which means you can send questionnaires written in other languages to your clients via Gavel’s secure client portal, ultimately saving time and improving client satisfaction.
Gavel’s client portal serves as a central document hub for both the lawyer and client that can be accessed by either party. With the portal, you can create new client intake questionnaires that can be used to auto-populate future government forms. That way, data can be inputted once to complete the various forms required for their immigration case, instead of you, your staff, or your client having to manually record repetitive information (like name, date of birth, ID number, etc.) every time a new document needs to be filed.
Plus, Gavel does more than just simplify your intake process. By eliminating much of the manual data entry and routine tasks involved in your immigration law practice, Gavel ensures the accuracy demanded by US immigration services, so cases get resolved more quickly, clients are happier, and you can boost your profitability.
Gavel helps by:
Guiding clients through the application process, with support for multiple languages
Reducing the time spent on document generation and other repetitive tasks, freeing you up to better serve your clients for better customer relationship management (CRM) and high-level case strategizing
Eliminating substantial labor for your support staff, potentially cutting down on what you bill through to your clients
Ensuring accuracy to reduce the rate of refusals by government entities
Gavel Features for Immigration Law
Gavel revolutionizes your immigration law business with key functionalities that can help you work smarter.
Gavel offers automated workflows, generation of custom documents, the ability to push data between workflows, and client portals so that clients can access their information and provide all the information they need. As well as being an effective software for onboarding clients, Gavel’s workflow automation helps you stay on track and hit all the milestones your client wants to see along the way.
Additionally, Gavel’s AI tool, Blueprint, can do much of the work for you. For example, if you need to complete USCIS Form I-589, simply upload that form once, and let Blueprint scan the upload and suggest custom questions to populate your questionnaire. Once the questionnaire is populated, send it to your client (and any other future clients) to complete. After it is completed, you have an accurate, completed Form I-589 that is ready to be signed (via Docusign or native e-signature integration) and submitted. Form auto-population saves time by automatically populating USCIS and other immigration forms with client data, speeding up the process and reducing errors.
Gavel’s AI tool, Blueprint, creates your template questionnaire for you, further streamlining your practice
Secure Docusign or native e-signature integration means clients can sign documents remotely, helping speed up the process
Multilingual support helps non-English-speaking clients understand what is being asked of them and reduces miscommunication errors
Driving Results with Immigration Law Automation
Don't underestimate the time you can save by automating document creation. Gavel has helped law firms cut drafting time by up to 90%, freeing up lawyers to work with clients and grow their practices. Automation can help you save 20 hours a week or more, depending on your workload.
Emilia Coto of Sisu Legal, an immigration law firm, writes, "For each client, I easily save several hours of work and about 75% of the time I spent drafting." Her firm uses Gavel to retrieve 95% of the information it needs from clients during the onboarding process.
Streamlining processes also lead to greater client satisfaction. Immigration clients want their cases resolved as soon as possible, and while there's not much you can do about the speed of government bureaucracy, with Gavel, you can at least assure your client that you are handling their case efficiently and cost-effectively.
Gavel’s support for multiple languages is also a huge driver of client satisfaction. Lawyers can select from 19 languages when creating each questionnaire and even add context and explanations within the questionnaire in the selected language. Understanding what is being asked of them helps clients provide the right information quickly. This can also provide clients with a sense of autonomy over their case when everything else feels out of their hands.
Gavel offers:
Faster case resolution
Improved accuracy
Multilanguage support
More accurate client onboarding
Deadline management
Use Cases for Immigration Law Automation
Leveraging Gavel’s automation tools helps take a lot of the hassle out of practicing immigration law. Meeting strict deadlines, submitting detailed documentation, and tackling language barriers can all be simplified with our streamlined workflows, powerful integrations, and client-facing platform.
Family immigration applications. Handling immigration for dependents and family members requires extensive documentation. These applications get even more complex when there’s a language barrier and miscommunication. With Gavel’s secure client portal, clients can view the questionnaires written in their native language, more easily providing answers to form questions and providing required material such as marriage certificates, birth certificates, and work records. Then, once all the information is gathered, Gavel auto-populates that information into the appropriate workflow templates, ensuring accuracy and expediting this portion of representation.
Employment visas. Handling immigration cases for H-1B or L-1 visa applicants means coordinating information with clients and employers while staying compliant with employment law. Gavel’s centralized data collection keeps communications organized and allows attorneys to parties to track the intake completion progress in the client portal.
Asylum cases. These can be extremely complex cases and often involve sparse documentation. Gavel can streamline the creation of forms, declarations, and affidavits. Through Gavel’s secure client portal, clients can answer intake forms that auto-fill the documents on their own time and review what is being asked of them.
Top Features to Consider for Immigration Law Automation
When you're trying to streamline your immigration law processes, you need to be sure any software you use is right for your needs. Here are some features you should look for:
Customization. Every case is different, and every government agency has its own inflexible way of doing things. You need software that allows you to create forms exactly the way they’re required in an ever-evolving field.
Autofill capabilities. Completing forms for USCIS and other governmental agencies often involves a lot of repetitive data entry, so look for a platform that can accurately fill out the necessary fields to save you time.
Deadline tracking. One of the most challenging aspects of immigration law is staying aware and on top of all the deadlines you have to meet. Gavel helps both you and your client stay on track with government deadlines by signaling which questionnaires have been completed and which legal documents have not yet been generated.
Secure client portal. An intuitive and easy-to-use client portal with support for multiple languages makes gathering the necessary data for immigration cases easier than ever. At the same time, clients need to know that their data is being protected.
Integrations. Streamline your processes further and expand what you can offer to your clients by syncing your case management platform with other platforms like Docusign and Zapier.
Using Gavel to Support Immigration Law
Gavel offers a range of powerful features for anyone practicing immigration law. With robust automation capabilities, multilingual support, and an intuitive and easy-to-use client portal, Gavel can save you hours to speed through your caseload to help more clients.
"For each client, I easily save several hours of work and about 75% of the time I spent drafting."
Emilia Coto
Principal Lawyer and Founder at Sisu Legal
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