Most legal automations focus on agreements: leases, contracts, and ancillary documents. Reports are different. Alongside legal precision, they need to communicate clearly to clients who may have little background knowledge of property transactions. This project, therefore, required a much stronger focus on:
In short, the output needed to look as professional as it reads, while still being practical to draft and easy to maintain as a transaction evolves.
We designed the Report on Title as a whole, rather than optimising individual sections in isolation. That led us to a two-stage, user-centric design process - one that considered both the users creating the report and the clients receiving it.
Stage one: understanding users and workflows
Before thinking about layout, colours, or formatting, we focused on user analysis. That meant mapping out how Reports on Title are produced and used in practice, and answering some fundamental questions:
We built simple process maps and information flows to make sure the automation fitted naturally into real transaction workflows, rather than forcing lawyers to work around the tool.
Stage two: grounding design decisions in real needs
From that analysis, a small number of design themes emerged that guided every decision we made:
Before and after: design decisions in practice
With these objectives in mind, we turned to the structure and presentation of the report itself.
Cover page: setting the tone
Automation cover pages are usually minimally designed, perhaps including just the parties’ names and the firm drafting the document. For the Report on Title, we introduced:
Importantly, this is all achieved without locking users into something rigid - the document remains fully editable in Word.
Cover page - before and after
Executive summary: clarity, space and visual hierarchy
The executive summary is often the only section some clients read in detail, so it deserves particular attention. We adopted familiar concepts like Red / Amber / Green risk ratings, but:
The result is a summary that’s easier to scan, understand and maintain.
Executive summary - before and after
Searches: summarising without overwhelming
Search results are essential, but can be difficult to parse, particularly for clients with little background knowledge of property transactions.
In the Report, we focus on:
Searches - before and after
Schedules: making complex information easier to digest
Schedules are often where reports become dense and difficult to navigate. We reviewed the language and structure carefully, shifting towards:
This approach makes schedules easier for clients to engage with, while still preserving legal precision.
Schedules - before and after
Practical implementation: blending law, tech, and design
Design-led legal automation brings real benefits, but it also adds complexity to delivery. One of the biggest challenges is managing collaboration between legal experts, technical specialists, and design and branding stakeholders, with no single "right" order to work in. For example, should you build a plain automation first, then layer in design? Or try to develop both in parallel?
In practice, the answer is usually iteration. A few practical lessons we took from this project:
Done well, the extra investment pays off.
Conclusion: reports that work harder for lawyers and clients
The Report on Title automation is a great example of the value legal automation can deliver beyond speed and efficiency. By combining legal logic, user-centric design, and careful attention to branding and usability, we’ve built something that genuinely works harder for both lawyers and clients: saving hours of administrative time, supporting effective delegation and producing reports that look as professional as they read.
It's also an exciting step forward for Real Estate Plus: not just complex legal logic, but thoughtfully designed, client-ready outputs.
Learn more about Clarilis' Report on Title suite.