3 Step Automation is 1 Step Too Many
Building an automated document takes three important steps.
The Contract Certainty Blog
Building an automated document takes three important steps.
Guess what? There's a standards war going on. Not quite as scary as the war on terror. But a war that will decide which format we all use for "office" documents, and how much choice we have over the tools used to write those documents. What a novel idea. Choice in the office tools market. You mean there's something other than Word?
This is all happening because I didn’t write, “I’ll charge you 1.5 percent” – John O’Quinn
What’s the value of a clause? About $35 million if your name is John O’Quinn. His firm failed to include a clause authorizing the deduction of “general expenses” from settlement payouts in a breast implant class action. And this month, an aribtration panel ordered the firm to pay $35.7M in damages to the clients who were overcharged. Expensive mistake.
According to the latest IACCM newsletter, someone at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Groningen has made an amazing discovery: a 'one size fits all' approach to standard contract terms will often lead to sub-optimal results in key strategic relationships. That's what they found when they had a look at high tech alliances and the contracts used to set them up.
One of the favorite excuses for not using a document generation system is that users don't trust it. It's too much of a black box. The system makes you answer a bunch of questions. You wait... The system spits out a document. And that's that.
Exari Version 5 is alive. And boy has technology improved in the 21 years since Short Circuit hit the silver screen…
The world’s first law firm IPO happened this month, when Melbourne-based personal injury firm Slater & Gordon listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. And unlike the earlier attempt by Integrated Legal Holdings, this float went off without a hitch. Indeed it went off with a pop. Shares were up 40% on their issue price by the end of the first day, and have gone up considerably since then.
Hard to believe, I know. But the conclusion of Roberta Gelb in a recent Law.com article, Beware the Hidden Costs of Bad Formatting is that document formatting is not sexy. That said, it may save you money. Possibly lots of money, if Roberta's sums are to be believed.
As a fresh faced law school graduate, one of my first tasks at the firm I joined was to incorporate a company. From what I recall, the process involved:
Having worked a lot with banks recently, we’re well aware of their huge range of product offerings. (According to Accenture, your typical bank now has about 350 products.)