AI-assisted drafting for commercial contracts

AI-assisted drafting for commercial contracts is particularly well-suited to the economics of a commercial practice, where high volumes of broadly similar agreements need to be produced quickly, reviewed efficiently and negotiated within predictable parameters. Commercial contract work is often the part of a transactional practice where the gap between the time spent and the value delivered is most acute.

The commercial contracts volume problem

A transactional firm with a commercial contracts practice handles a large number of agreements that are structurally similar: services agreements, supply agreements, software licences, distribution arrangements, framework agreements and their variations. Each one requires a first draft, counterparty review and, typically, one or more rounds of negotiation. The work is not complex at the individual clause level, but the volume is significant and the time pressure is real.

The conventional approach is to produce each agreement from a precedent, with an associate spending time adapting it to the specific context and facts of the engagement. This is reliable but slow, and it produces quality that varies with the experience and attention of the associate on the day.

Where AI changes the equation

AI-assisted drafting from firm precedents reduces the assembly time for a standard commercial agreement significantly. A services agreement that previously required two to three hours of associate time to produce from a precedent can be produced in a fraction of that time when the system understands the firm's standard positions and the specific parameters of the engagement. The associate's time is redirected to reviewing the output, applying judgment to deal-specific issues and managing the client relationship.

On the counterparty review side, accelerated identification of departures from the firm's standard positions reduces the time a qualified lawyer needs to spend reviewing a marked-up document before advising the client on what the counterparty has changed and why it matters.

Consistency at scale

The other benefit is consistency. A commercial contracts practice that produces fifty agreements a year from the same precedent base, with different associates involved, will have some variation in clause language, defined terms and structural approach. AI-assisted drafting from a well-maintained precedent base reduces that variation and produces more consistent outputs across the team. To see what this looks like for your commercial practice, book a demo and we can walk through a specific document type.