Michal Bell, LawGeex Head of Product, on the next generation of AI contract review helping reduce legal risk through consistency
Legal knowledge tends to reside in lawyers’ heads, creating a dependency on lawyers sharing their know-how. AI is helping to distribute this knowledge simply, across an organization.
Ensuring legal consistency across an organization is one of the principles of LawGeex. Which is why today we are proud to announce the Launch of LawGeex 4.0. To see what’s in the release and get a demo for yourselves see here.
For the first time, a veteran GC who has been at a company for 30 years, a paralegal who has just joined, or a non-legal member, will have at their fingertips the same institutional knowledge needed to effectively review and approve everyday contracts before signing them. Anyone in an organization can now review contracts quickly and accurately, every time.
Our new LawGeex release provides granular variations on legal concepts. This allows businesses more control when pinpointing the legal concepts they want to approve—and do not want to approve—when LawGeex AI reviews their incoming contracts.
Take the example of a Limitation of liability clause (this limits the amount of exposure a company faces in the event a lawsuit is filed or another claim).
In-house lawyers can now go beyond merely saying whether they want contracts they sign to include a limitation of liability clause. They can outline for instance, what carve out from the cap on liability is permissible according to their company’s policy. For example, acceptable carve-outs from the cap could be a breach of confidentiality or damages arising from gross negligence or willful misconduct. A Customer can even specify the exact amount at which the damages should be capped—all simply and clearly.
The upshot is that the AI review can now follow customers’ granular legal guidelines. This results in more tailored and accurate contract review.
In a second important strike for consistency, in-house lawyers can now plug in their company’s sample clause language and fallback positions to each legal concept reviewed by LawGeex. These business standards are then clearly visible next to each clause when editing the contract within the platform. This increases the speed and consistency of processes and language across everyday contract review, whether your teams are based in London, New York or Tokyo.
Freeing up time
It is important to note that these enhancements follow significant feedback from our customers. They are excited about a future in which they spend less time reviewing everyday contracts. Lawyers are smart people and do not enjoy doing robotic legal work. Reviewing NDAs is not what anyone went to law school for. Most of our in-house counsel and procurement customers are quite direct when speaking to us that they just want burdensome processes and simple contracts off their plates completely.
Preventing contract time bomb risks
More than this, many contract managers and in-house lawyers told us during consultation, that they have been burnt by ineffective contract review. They simply no longer see manual routines, and reinventing of wheels, as fit for purpose. In one case, a client came to us after a (fairly obvious) contract risk was not spotted ahead of signing, leading to a costly lawsuit.
Even those who have not suffered direct cost damages, all face pressure from sales and procurement teams to turnaround contracts faster. In some cases, there has been additional frustration from both legal teams and those reliant on legal, that the same contracts seem to be reviewed and interpreted any number of ways. It is often impossible to explain why this should be the case.
The new LawGeex 4.0 and its extreme level of granularity and added control is going to help any contract manager or lawyer who has faced these situations — and help prevent such future risks arising.
Simple, clean design
In the redesign, we also wanted lawyers and contract reviewers to have a clean, professional interface that follows closely the software and workflows they are used to. Lawyers have a lot of work and volumes are only growing, so making technology understandable and super simple is at the core of our product.
Security is the priority
Finally, there is nothing more important than security when it comes to sensitive contract information. We are pleased to announce that LawGeex’s SaaS platform and servers are now fully ISO/IEC-27001 certified, ensuring the highest levels of privacy and security.
I look forward to sharing many more updates as we continue to bring technology that helps businesses reduce mundane paperwork and focus on more strategic tasks.
We value every piece of feedback and would love you to get in touch with us to suggest further improvements and enhancements. Please get in touch at hello@lawgeex.com
Michal Bell, is Head of Products at LawGeex, responsible for the company’s product strategy and roadmap.
Michal has extensive experience in managing market-leading products from initial inception to maturity. She is passionate about delivering productive and innovative solutions that provide long-lasting value.
For further details and a demo of the new-look LawGeex get in touch today.
