Using artificial intelligence for contract management

According to The Future Ready Lawyer Report 2021 by Wolters Kluwer, 70% of legal professionals say Artificial Intelligence will have an impact on their department, up from 58% in 2020*. As legal departments are increasing their adoption of technology to improve efficiency, it is natural to ask, “how can AI help?”

Teaching a machine to perform routine tasks – like data extraction, contract review or analytics reporting – is not only attractive but entirely possible. That said, AI is not a magic wand, nor does it replace the vital role of lawyers. The law remains complex, and even though intelligence can be taught, subtleties can escape the machine. The key is to adopt AI technology to automate your manual processes to become more productive, not to adopt AI simply for the sake of it.

Contract management is at the core of every legal department and there is no doubt that lawyers spend much of their time storing contracts, scrolling through archives, searching for information, and trying to understand them. With bigger workloads due to increased regulations and associated complexity, inefficiencies in contract processes can lead to lost deals and unmitigated risks.

With AI, Legal can be free from the drudgery of tedious contract-related tasks that hold them back from reaching their true potential.

Contract indexing with artificial intelligence

Nowadays, it is impossible to imagine understanding a new PDF contract just by clicking through it. More concretely, the lawyers can load their file into the AI software, the process starts, and within a few seconds, the user will receive a report containing all the key information extracted from the contract. Before AI, it would take on average 20 minutes for a lawyer to understand a new contract; with AI-assisted contract review, it will take between 4-5 minutes with the lawyer’s analytical skills, which are still crucial in detecting anomalies, as the law itself remains complex and certain subtleties may escape the machine.

Traditionally, to compile reports, get alerted on contracts and search for a single company contract among thousands, you would need to have them all recorded beforehand. This work is not only time-consuming, but it leads to a build-up of contract archives scattered across the business. As a result, lawyers tend to prioritise these archives by only recording risky contracts, i.e. those with priority maturities or those formatted in the same way. This means that the recovery of historical records becomes just as complicated to deal with. What could be more frustrating when you deploy legal software than to open it and find that it is completely empty – especially when the company has negotiated thousands of contracts.

Data migration with artificial intelligence

Performing data migration manually is time consuming, costly, and risky. There is a high probability of mistakes with no guarantee of accuracy and a significant recovery time. You can also incur high costs of data entry and checking, and you will need to redo indexing for each new data point.

AI makes it possible to mass import your contract database. The idea is to be able to deal with an archive of contracts that lawyers simply never have the time to manage. This is a major step forward in terms of reliably securing the company’s assets – and the AI integrated software can do this instantly.  

AI technology makes data migration quick and painless! With automatic data migration you can guarantee data accuracy, have full control over indexing time with a mass analysis, eliminate import costs and have a better outcome. Simply put, with AI-assisted data migration, you can bring the entire contract management activity under control and enrich the data points with no interruptions.

Improving legal department performance with AI

Lawyers can seamlessly leverage unique AI technology and deep learning capabilities to automate contract indexing, streamline, and simplify their tasks, by resolving critical pain points in the contract management lifecycle. This essentially allows legal departments to

• Deliver work in a timely manner by analysing contracts simultaneously
• Improve the quality of service while reducing costs thanks to higher data accuracy
• Ensure compliance with contractual obligations
• Mitigate risks across contract processes
• Enable a smooth contracting process to support the revenue goals of the business, adhering to deadlines
• Empower the business to be self-sufficient
• Evolve at the pace of growth of your business.