Contract[Δ]delta
Create multiple contracts using an advanced ‘question and answer’ system
At The Contracts Teams we know that good commercial agreements benefit from legal expertise and we are not offering document assembly technology as a replacement for legal input. What we believe, having used the technology for some years, is that document assembly is the right tool for leveraging legal expertise, reducing the overall cost of contract production and, at the same time, providing high quality, business focused, output.
Contract[Δ]delta combines our legal expertise with document assembly technology. A solicitor creates a ‘template’ that tailors each contract to a specific project, providing consistency and control, and specifically reflecting your business.
Why use document assembly technology?
Creating a contract by starting with a blank document is usually neither necessary nor desirable. However, neither is simply cutting and pasting old contracts, agreements and precedents to create a best-fit document. Unfortunately, this is often what most ‘old style’ lawyers do; they take an office precedent and try to whittle it into shape.
Regardless of whether a contract is simple or complex, this outdated process can take more time than one might expect, and even then it often results in a document which is a rough approximation of the desired end result; additional time is often expended knocking the document into shape so that it is a suitable first draft. With simple contracts the document production time can be disproportionate to the time spent deploying commercial or legal advice. With complex documents, the risks of errors and oversights increases.
By comparison, document assembly technology can make light work of such tasks. Document assembly technology can quickly produce better quality documents, which means the cost of producing the document is significantly reduced. With more complex agreements, document assembly technology does more than take the grunt work out of producing a first draft. It also provides a reliable and consistent means of ensuring that all the correct components for a project are integrated into the document.
The benefits of document assembly automation
Automated document assembly provides the following benefits:
- the quality of the contract is not dependent on the legal drafting skills of the individual (lawyer or non-lawyer);
- a document closely reflects the actual project details rather than looking like a document which started life as a law firm precedent;
- document assembly technology produces consistent documents that are aligned to business needs. This makes it much easier to manage contracts after they have been signed (this is usually the point at which most lawyers disengage from the process and therefore don’t always appreciate the extent of the mis-match between the legal document and the practical implementation of a project).
The tool we use is called HotDocs®. To find out how it works, click here.
