Capturing legal knowledge without the chaos - How workflow automation makes it stick

Every legal team has a “Cheryl” who just knows everything—the go-to person for how things are done, where to find that one clause, or who handled the Acme deal three years ago.
But what happens when Cheryl’s on leave? Or leaves for good?

Legal knowledge—case strategy, precedent language, negotiation history, regulatory reasoning—often lives in people’s heads, buried in inboxes, or scattered across a maze of folders in your DMS. Capturing and sharing that knowledge is critical for consistency, onboarding, and long-term efficiency.

But most firms and legal departments treat knowledge capture like an afterthought. And that’s what makes it one of the gnarliest legal workflows of all.

Why knowledge capture is so gnarly

1. It’s usually an afterthought

People are focused on getting the deal done, responding to the regulator, or delivering the outcome. Documenting insights or storing knowledge properly is something they’ll “do later.” (Spoiler: they won’t.)

 2. It’s disconnected from the work

Knowledge capture usually happens in isolation—maybe a lawyer fills out a form, maybe someone uploads a doc to the knowledge platform. It’s manual, separate, and often redundant.

3. It’s hard to find what’s already known

Even when teams do try to capture knowledge, the systems don’t talk to each other. The document is in iManage, the reasoning is in a Word doc, and the context is in someone’s inbox.

How to fix it: Make knowledge capture part of the process

Here’s the shift: don’t bolt on knowledge capture—bake it in.

That’s where platforms like Autologyx come in.

By integrating Autologyx with your DMS (like iManage or NetDocuments) and knowledge platform (like Litera Foundation), you can capture, tag, and organize knowledge automatically as part of the workflow itself.

What this looks like in practice

Let’s say a lawyer completes a contract negotiation workflow in Autologyx:

• The final document is saved to your DMS, fully versioned
• Key metadata (jurisdiction, contract type, clauses used, negotiated positions) is captured during the process
• Autologyx pushes a structured knowledge asset to Litera Foundation—including the outcome, negotiation notes, and related documents
• Future lawyers can search for similar matters, reuse clauses, or learn from what was done before—without sending a single “Hey, did we ever…” email

Benefits of Automating Knowledge Capture

Consistency

Every deal, filing, or advisory opinion follows the same process. So knowledge is captured in a structured, repeatable way.

Context

Because capture is part of the workflow, you’re not just saving documents—you’re saving the why, who, when, and how behind them.

Discoverability

With integrated systems, knowledge assets show up where people are already working—whether that’s inside Litera, your DMS, or Autologyx dashboards.

Institutional memory

You’re no longer dependent on individual memory. You’re building a searchable, living knowledge base that grows with every matter.

Make knowledge work… work

Knowledge management isn’t just about saving documents—it’s about capturing context. And that only happens when knowledge capture is part of the workflow, not something tacked on at the end.

By integrating Autologyx with your DMS and knowledge platform, you can:

• Capture insights automatically
• Structure knowledge consistently
• Reduce duplicative work
• Help your team learn from the past, faster
  
  Ready to stop losing institutional memory one inbox at a time?
  Let’s make knowledge capture part of the process.