As with most industries, the legal industry was severely impacted by the pandemic. Due to an unusually high level of caseloads coupled with the disruption of typical work routines as well as a sudden and acute shortage of staff, legal teams were scrambling to draft and review contracts on time. As such, the sector has been struggling to find and adopt new solutions to effectively and permanently tackle these issues. Thanks to advances in automation in the legal industry, legal teams can save time and money.
AI-powered tools are now helping lawyers draft and review legal contracts more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Ingenious machine learning and natural language processing technologies that are capable of detecting and replicating familiar patterns in large volumes of data are shouldering much of the burden when it comes to contract review. These innovative technologies can perform automated contract drafting, contract review, and other important tasks within a fraction of the time they would otherwise take.
Why do we need legal contract AI solutions?
The most serious challenge legal teams face in contracting is the sheer volume of contracts they need to deal with. Even a small to medium-sized firm handles hundreds (or sometimes even a few thousand) of contracts at any given time. It is difficult to organize, file, and manage these contracts, and even harder to extract and review information from them.
A lot of manpower is required to:
- Draft, execute and improve these contracts
- Manage the contracting processes and transactions governed by these contracts
Even an aspect as fundamental as managing the renewal of procurement contracts can become a hassle when hundreds of contracts have as many renewal dates to track and review. This is where AI can make all the difference in the world. AI algorithms make it extremely easy to retrieve specific bits of data (which, in this case, would be renewal dates) from these contracts. Moreover, these algorithms can organize the dates in any order of preference that is input into the system. Firms with an extraordinarily high caseload can even train their software to file this data against relevant parameters like client name, business, and concerned contract managers, helping firms streamline their contract review, management, and renewal processes. These processes, of course, help achieve maximum work efficiency without any risk of contract disputes or antagonistic negotiations.
Why use legal contract AI tools?
- Improved tools for managing contracts
Contract technology has existed for over a decade. The earliest versions of these programs merely helped firms store these documents as soft copies that could be easily accessed by anyone with a hard drive or floppy disk. The next generation of these programs gave users the ability to store and systematically organize these documents; users could create multiple folders that helped them segregate these documents into relevant categories. With AI, this process and many others like it can be automated to save both time and effort. AI contract review software can help legal teams review and markup contracts in minutes, cutting contract review times by more than 70%. The benefit is that legal teams are able to work more efficiently, allowing them to concentrate on higher-value tasks.
2. Ensures contract review consistency
The way a company defines certain terms is expected to be uniform and consistent throughout its legal contracts. Any discrepancies in this might expose them to potential legal loopholes that can be exploited for the benefit of a malicious third party. AI-powered software uses intuitive algorithms to make sure each term is used accurately and uniformly throughout a company’s legal documents. For example, a record label might want to define the terms “beneficiaries” or “the artist(s)” a certain way in their documents. It is then the legal firm’s responsibility to ensure that these terms are used in the same context throughout their documents. AI contract review software can be trained to identify words that are commonly used with these keywords in the right context. The software will then flag the wrong usages of these words throughout the documents, thereby helping the firm maintain consistency throughout their work.
3. Helps new lawyers learn faster
AI contract review software captures and curates institutional knowledge, transforming it into a living body of contract information that is accessible to new lawyers as they enter the organization. The software also makes administrative work quicker and easier. After tasks such as contract drafting, reviewing, and redlining have been automated, the layers can focus on the actual legal aspect of their work. This helps new entrants to firms climb their way to the top of the learning curve much faster than ever before. Similarly, senior lawyers can save valuable time and focus on building and cultivating invaluable client relationships that benefit their firm.
In conclusion
AI contract review software is a state-of-the-art innovation that is changing the way legal teams function. Automatic contract review software streamlines the process of drafting, reviewing, redlining, and other administrative tasks for these firms.
With Blackboiler, you can harness the magic of AI to help your legal team reach its maximum operating potential. Our incredibly malleable custom contract review and markup platform allow you to review and markup contracts in minutes, not hours. In addition, it is the only patented 100% AI-powered tool on the market that learns from your company’s playbook and historical contracts, to edit your legal contracts with incredible efficiency.
