Role
In-house counsel
How long does reviewing a standard contract take - and how much of that time is reading things you have seen a hundred times? A whole legal department fits between the two.
Intro call
Four questions we would start with
How long before a contract comes back with a review?
If it is a week, some contracts bypass legal, because the business cannot wait that long. And those are usually the contracts most worth looking at.
Whose desk does it land on when a counterparty will not accept a clause?
If it is always yours, the legal department is a bottleneck in every negotiation, including the routine ones.
How many times a month do you answer the same question?
That number usually explains where most of the time meant for the difficult matters went.
What stays in the company when a lawyer leaves?
If the positions taken in similar matters are recorded nowhere, the new lawyer rebuilds them from zero and the business gets different answers than a year earlier.
We take over the reading and the searching, you keep the legal judgement
The first review of a contract, comparison with the template, finding earlier positions and running matters can be taken off the desk. The legal judgement and the decision about risk stay with the lawyer.
- The first read is about the departures, not the whole. - A contract arrives with the differences marked against the template and against what you accepted before.
- Repeat questions have a recorded answer. - A position once taken is available instead of being reconstructed in the next conversation.
- A contract does not disappear after signing. - Dates, obligations and notice clauses are visible rather than discovered in a dispute.
Scope
What can be taken off a legal department
Twenty example tasks. Each one has a human approval point. Below is a selection, and the scope we fit to your practice.
Matters coming into the department
- One route for raising a matter with a lawyer
- An initial classification of the matter by type (confirmation: the lawyer)
- Assembling the documents needed for an opinion
- A signal when a matter has been waiting longer than agreed
Contract review
- Comparing the contract with your template
- Marking clauses departing from the agreed standard
- Pointing out clauses that are absent and required
- A reminder of how a similar clause was assessed before
- A draft of the comments on the contract (content and decision: the lawyer)
Templates and clauses
- A library of clauses with variants and commentary
- Pointing out the template that fits the type of matter
- A signal when a template has not been updated for a long time
- A register of departures accepted in the past
Contentious matters
- A calendar of procedural and contractual deadlines
- Assembling the material for a case
- A register of cases with status and value in dispute
- A chronology of the events in a case
The company's legal knowledge
- A record of the positions taken in recurring matters
- Answers to routine questions with a reference to the position (oversight: the lawyer)
- A summary of the questions asked most often
A day's work
Today
- You read every contract from the beginning, including one on a familiar template
- You catch departures from the standard yourself, by attention
- You answer a question that has come up ten times already from scratch
- You search emails for an earlier position in a similar matter
- You watch procedural deadlines in a calendar and in your head
- After signing, a contract disappears until a problem appears
With AI assistance
- A contract arrives with the departures from the template marked
- A missing required clause is pointed out
- Routine questions have a recorded answer, you oversee the wording
- Earlier positions are available rather than reconstructed
- Procedural deadlines remind themselves
- The obligations from signed contracts are visible
- Time to review
fewer contracts bypassing the legal department
the first read is about departures rather than the whole
- Consistent positions
the same matter gets the same answer
the positions are recorded and available
- Risk in signed contracts
obligations are not discovered in a dispute
dates and clauses are visible after signing
- Knowledge within reach
a lawyer leaving does not take the department's practice
the knowledge is in a register, not in memory
We start with contract review, because that is where the volume of repetitive work is greatest.
- Step 1
Comparison with the template
A contract arrives with departures and gaps against your standard marked.
- Step 2
A library of clauses and positions
Clause variants, a register of accepted departures, recorded positions.
- Step 3
Matters coming in, and deadlines
One route for raising a matter, a calendar of procedural and contractual deadlines.
- Step 4
Obligations from signed contracts
Visibility of dates, notice periods and obligations. Last, because it needs the contract register in order.
Common questions
Questions that come up at the first meeting
Does material covered by legal professional privilege leave the organisation?
That is the first question a lawyer asks, and the answer has to be technical rather than declarative: it is settled at the architecture stage, before any rollout. Solutions running inside your own infrastructure are real, and in this area we usually start from them. If in a particular case they are not, the scope narrows to what can be done without sending material outside - and that has to be said plainly before anybody starts counting benefits.
What about confidentiality of matters within the company?
Access to matters is limited exactly as you limit access to files today. Some matters - employment, contentious, board-related - are usually excluded from wider access at the design stage, and that is the first thing to settle.
Should the legal department be smaller after this?
In-house legal departments are usually too small for the number of matters - and that is why some contracts go through with no review. Taking over the first read does not shrink the team; it reduces the number of matters that bypass it because the business did not want to wait. That is a change in coverage, not in headcount, and it is usually what this conversation is about.
Does this fall under the AI Act?
Supporting a lawyer's work is not a high-risk use. The line runs at employment matters and at assessments concerning particular people - there we set the scope carefully, and every position remains the lawyer's, not the system's.
Still have a question that is not here? Book a call
Next step
How many contracts went through last quarter with no legal review?
We will show you what a legal department's work looks like when the first review is about the departures and positions once taken are available.