Most law students and junior attorneys need more experience drafting or reviewing legal contracts. Even the novice can create a complete agreement with some guidelines. Legal tech solutions also help speed up the contract review and drafting process. Many lawyers remain concerned about the use of automated contract drafting software. Fear of being replaced with soulless software is one of the main reasons for this fear.
The software cannot replace the human mind and experience. Learn how to combine a contract review and drafting tool with legal expertise to streamline contract creation. In the sections below, lawyers discuss their opinions on modern contract drafting software and other legal technology and how it can be integrated into a lawyer’s daily routine. They share their tips and experiences on how to draft and review contracts in this guide.
What is contract drafting?
The process of legal contract drafting involves composing an agreement between two or three parties. A legally binding agreement should have two primary purposes:
The agreement should be clearly defined between the parties.
Protect the legal rights of parties.
Lawyers often draft legal documents on behalf of their clients. Using specially designed software to help you with templates for legal documents is increasingly popular.
Legal contracts are essential for individuals and businesses who want to resolve legal problems. To avoid creating new agreements every time, lawyers should have templates of documents ready. Daniel Novela is the founder of Novela Law and an adjunct professor of corporate laws at the University of Miami Law School. He shared with lawyers his advice on how to draft contracts by considering clients’ expectations.
A contract checklist will help attorneys save time and prevent costly mistakes when drafting a contract for a client. Ben Michael of Michael & Associates stresses the importance of giving clients a list of questions:
After the attorney has drafted the contract, reviewing all clauses, schedules, and payments is time. Also, the scope of the work should be checked.
What is Contract Review?
The next step in preparing legal documents is to review them. Reviewing contracts involves revising the terms and conditions agreed upon between the parties and ensuring fairness, consistency, and compliance with the law. Legal documents should be clear, concise, and free of legalese so that all parties understand them.
Lawyers can apply various contract review techniques based on their experience. These lawyers explain which parts of the contract should be reviewed first.
It may be difficult for one lawyer to review all the legal contracts in his office. Most law offices have a workflow requiring more documents to be reviewed and drafted quickly and more interaction with the clients. More automation will free up more time to do other things. Legal tech companies offer multiple contract review tools to law firms, departments, and solo lawyers to simplify their daily workflow.
What is Contract Drafting and Review Software?
Automated contract review and drafting tools can streamline contract creation. Legal contract review and drafting software has been in the spotlight of legal technology for quite some time. Opinions may differ, but it is clear that with this software, one of the most significant issues in the legal workflow will be solved. Lawyers who review contracts by hand, going through every clause for the 100th time, can lose track of their review and miss essential terms.
Our colleagues shared their experiences on the features that they found most important in automated contract drafting software. These include:
- Savings in time and money;
- Workflow efficiency
- Agreements that eliminate errors and reduce risk instantly;
- Teamwork is a collaboration.
Most legal contract review software uses pre-built artificial intelligence (AI), allowing them to perform several tasks at once. Lawyers previously used contract review software that detected factual errors and omissions within their documents. They can now see a detailed comparison of contract types and how the clauses in the documents match up.
Although this may sound promising, some of our lawyers who responded to the survey mentioned possible downsides to AI-powered drafting software. These include:
- Installing software can be expensive.
- It’s time for the team to start using the software.
- Replace lawyers with their expertise.
Do these perceived problems reflect reality? Can robots soon draft legal contracts, review them, and even negotiate them? Joshua Fractman shares his opinion on the matter.
Not vice versa; contract drafting and review software should help lawyers in their daily work. These tools allow attorneys to concentrate on more important tasks and focus on their priorities. They also provide relief from mundane work. Final revisions are still necessary from a legal standpoint, as these documents depend on the client’s situation, state or federal law, amendments, etc.
It should be easy to use and provide value. It may be similar to using WordPerfect or Microsoft Word. The contract drafting tools try to be “innovatively helpful.” Foster J. Sayers, a legal expert on AI and contracts, described the following as a common problem for contract drafting software:
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