Even the best legal team runs into time-consuming speed bumps while reviewing contracts. Your solution? An AI-driven contract review software that tackles your specific needs and smooths out the road to completed negotiations.
There are dozens of options to consider, each one boasting niche specialties and unique features. So, how do you cut through the noise to find the right solution for your business?
You can do this in a couple of straightforward steps:
- Analyze your team’s current contract review processes.
- Identify the pain points that your team experiences during contract review. Curious about what these pain points may look like? Check out these Signs That Your Business Needs Automated Contract Review Software.
- Assess each contract review software option and specifically how it can tackle your company’s contract review challenges.
Ready to kick your contract review processes into overdrive? Here are some suggestions to help you find the best contract review software for your company.
The Need for Speed
The most direct route is a straight line. If your team wants to speed up the contract review process, you need software that decreases steps, not adds more to your plate.
Products that just provide insight or extract data points create additional steps in the review process. If you want to get to the signature finish line faster, you need software that actually takes on time-consuming tasks like initial contract review, red lining, and offering alternative text that matches your business playbook.
BlackBoiler works the way you would work, taking tasks off your plate so you can focus on the end goal of a signed contract.
Volume and Scalability
A bottlenecked process is your worst enemy when scaling your business. Automation with contract review software can greatly reduce busy work so your team can focus on completing contracts and reducing the contract timeline.
Software like BlackBoiler can review pages of documents in seconds and flag any sections that need special attention. This will help your team prioritize their time in sections that need a human touch.
Boost Company Reputation
With word-of-mouth marketing and client referrals as some of the most valuable channels for new customers, reputation is everything.
Did you know that contract review software has a big hand in optimizing your company’s reputation during the contract review process?
Consider your client’s perception when your team significantly reduces legal review time. Speed and efficiency create a unique advantage in a competitive bidding process. For example, legal teams can redline complex contracts and NDAs in minutes using automated contract markup software such as BlackBoiler.
Develop Consistency in Risk Remediation
With efficient contract review, consistency is key.
Having a tool that understands your company playbook and adheres to the parameters of previous successful contracts ensures you know the software won’t suggest nonsense.
BlackBoiler maximizes quality redline suggestions by learning about your company’s approach and will only use your preferred phrasing in future edits.
Here are the 3 specific ways BlackBoiler builds editing models that power your playbook:
A key feature of BlackBoiler is its use of non-generative AI. This means that all the information it provides is tailored to your specific playbook. Unlike other tools, it doesn’t pull random, irrelevant, or potentially incorrect data from the web when suggesting changes. This is important because it helps minimize redlining. The more markups there are on the page, the more friction there is in the negotiation process, and the more challenging you may appear to your counterparty, especially when the relationship is just starting to form.
Strategies to Efficiently Review Counterparty Paper
It’s no secret that editing counterparty paper is a more time-consuming process than starting from your organization’s template. There’s more opportunity to overlook potential risks, so going line-for-line with the counterparty paper and your company playbook can take time without a dependable tool. On top of that, over-editing a counterparty contract can severely slow down the legal review process and position your company as “difficult” to work with.
BlackBoiler has a unique edge with counterparty paper review, because it has the technology to edit sections with “minimal ink spillage.” Where some tools flag entire sections of contracts that need edits, BlackBoiler can make surgical edits by pinpointing the specific words or phrases that require minimal compliance revisions. This extra specificity and care will significantly speed up the negotiation process and create a convenient process for clients.
To illustrate the difference between drop and swap editing and BlackBoiler’s more surgical approach, imagine a scenario where a customer has the following three rules for editing governing law provisions in its playbook:
- Make sure the governing law is New York
- Make sure that the governing law covers all disputes arising under the agreement but also “related” disputes that may not be a breach of contract action.
- Make sure the governing law applies “without regard to conflict of law principles.”
As a reference, the Customer’s form agreement contains the following governing law clause:
This Confidentiality Agreement and all related disputes shall be governed by the laws of New York State, without regard to conflict of law principles.
BlackBoiler’s Approach: Surgical Editing Example
Only the necessary edits are made – no superfluous edits
Other Automated Solutions: Complete Drop and Swap Example:
Diff – Drop and Swap Example:
Highlighted text indicates unnecessary editing, which is not required to bring the provision into compliance.
As you can see, BlackBoiler’s surgical editing makes as few revisions as possible to bring the governing law sentence into compliance with the playbook rules. In contrast, both examples of “Complete” and “Diff” Drop & Swap simply delete the governing law clause found in the agreement and insert that customer’s standard governing law clause. Thus, making superfluous edits can annoy the counterparty and slow down the negotiation process.
Additional Enhanced Features To Consider
- Approval Workflows: Get contract tasks in front of the right people instantly by assigning tasks or approval requests to legal, finance, or business teams.
- Integration with Microsoft Word: Attorneys largely work in Word, so make sure the technology you select works seamlessly within your team’s preferred platforms.
- Creation of Custom Playbooks: Develop and edit based on your customized business playbook. If you’re a small business and don’t have expertise negotiating this type of agreement, a community-sourced playbook may be helpful.
- Explainable AI: Make sure your team understands every edit the tool suggests with an easily findable explanation directly connected to your playbook.
Selecting the right contract review software can take you into the fast lane. By carefully considering the specific needs of your business and evaluating the features and capabilities of different software options, you can find a solution that streamlines your contract review process, mitigates risks, and ultimately drives your business forward. To learn more about efficient AI-driven contract review, schedule your BlackBoiler demo today.
