Legal Department Meet Document Automation
April 25th 2017
REUTERS / Ilya Naymushin
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The panel
Andy Wishart Global Head – Contract Express, Thomson Reuters Andy is a Legal Technologist specialising in contract automation and drafting. Andy was a co-founder and the CTO at Business Integrity until it was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2015. Previously, he was a researcher and lecturer in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology at the University of Edinburgh.
Adrian D’Amico Attorney & IT Consultant, FedEx Ground Adrian D'Amico is a licensed attorney with specializations in commercial transactions, business law, and real estate law. He has advanced consulting experience with expertise in information technology, legal-support technologies, advanced web strategies, and contract management/automation solutions.
Jamison Barr General Counsel, Jenzabar, Inc. Jamison oversees Jenzabar’s legal affairs, managing its legal group, and providing legal advice to the company’s Board of Directors. Prior to joining Jenzabar in 2001, he represented emerging technology companies in private practice. He is a certified mediator and an adjunct law professor who speaks and writes on issues and topics relating to the practice of law in a corporate setting.
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Agenda
15 mins Introduction to Document Automation (Andy Wishart)
15 mins Customer story: FedEx Ground (Adrian D’Amico)
15 mins Customer story: Jenzabar, Inc. (Jamison Barr)
15 mins Q&A (All)
– Use the WebEx chat panel to submit your questions!
Cost and time pressures
Risk management
No time to start new initiative
Long contracting process
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Introduction to document automation for legal departments
Document automation technologies enable Legal Departments to empower the business and reduce risk
• by making the contracting process more efficient the legal team has the ability
to focus on more valuable work, keeping more legal work in house
• by using automation software, drafting errors and unapproved / out of date
document use is greatly reduced
• by streamlining and pre-approving standard legal documents, business users
are able to self-serve 24/7 without legal “getting in the way”
• Document automation technologies are robust and mature with quick
implementation times
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What types of documents do legal departments automate?
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Automation through self-service
7 Tech-enabled contract process flow
Tech-enabled document automation workflow
Contract request Contract creation Contract review
User logs onto pre-questionnaire which directs to the appropriate template and/ or provides guidance.
If request non-standard user
could be prompted to contact the appropriate contract management/ legal team member.
User completes dynamic questionnaire, where answers determine which further questions are asked.
Questions accompanied by guidance, which informs user of your standard positions/ parameters and whether risk approvals will be triggered.
System “pulls” data from relevant CRM systems such as Salesforce.
User can review contract which has been created. User is informed what risk approvals will be triggered (if any).
Non-standard provisions are
highlighted.
When user is happy with draft it can be submitted to the customer/ supplier or for internal approvals if required.
Where internal approvals are
required user is prevented from exporting the contract until the approvals are received.
8 AI/ automation tech enabled contract process flow
9 AI/ automation tech enabled contract process flow
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Tech-enabled document automation workflow
Contract negotiation
Contract issued to customer/ supplier as PDF and customer invited to provide comments rather than redline.
Interface with digitized
playbook(s) to automatically produce a response to the supplier/customer, redline of the contract and risk report- all based on the your preferred position.
User could review the redline and review and edit the response and then send it to the supplier/ customer.
User could adjust the response by selecting from other possible responses.
Throughout this process the system would show guidance from the legal team.
Certain optional responses could require additional approvals before the response could be submitted to the supplier/ customer.
Throughout the process, the user can request assistance from the legal team.
To the extent possible
negotiations are concluded via use of this playbook functionality.
Where this isn’t possible the
contract will be relayed to the legal team for manual input.
This would be processed via a
word based plug-in which automatically records and tracks changes to the contract and can recognise such changes as metadata within the system.
11 AI/ automation tech enabled contract process flow
12 Tech-enabled contract process flow
Tech-enabled document automation workflow
Approval
When the contract is finalised it would be circulated via the system (and Outlook) to any further approvers necessary.
Contracts are watermarked as “in draft- not intended to create legal relations” until all approvals are received.
Approval requests should identify divergence from the your standard position.
Execution
When all approvals are received contract can be relayed to relevant colleagues, customers and suppliers via the system and email for digital signature
Storage
Signed contracts and data created through the system (for example approvals) should be stored on a single platform, which is effectively a master data library which could be integrated with other systems (e.g. SAP)
Reporting
The system can produce certain pre-defined reports and enable bespoke reports from time to time (for example how many contracts vary from our standard payment terms).
Further the system should enable contract search by user, customer/ supplier name and content
13 AI/ automation tech enabled contract process flow
14 AI/ automation tech enabled contract process flow
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Customer story
Adrian D’Amico Attorney & IT Consultant, FedEx Ground
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Why did FedEx Ground need document automation? Pain points solved
• Legal department
work overload
• Move standard
transactions off docket
• Better client service
(instant, self service
contracts)
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Research and selection process Must-have features for FedEx Ground
HotDocs, Exari, and Contract Express
• Contract Express was lawyer friendly
• SharePoint environment
• Ability to update templates without third parties
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Methodology General roll-out process
• Resources involved,
skills required
– IT Background
– Project Management
– Internal Approvals
– Gradual roll-out
• Challenges
– IT Approval
– Helpful if you speak
“IT language”
• What types of
documents automated
first and why
– High volume
– Client needs
agreements FAST
– Error prone (Audits)
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Benefits realized
• Client satisfaction
• Minimize non-compliance
• Paperless system (DocuSign)
• Vast improvement in contracting speed
• Reduced legal workload (focus on more complex issues, less outside counsel spend)
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Customer story
Jamison Barr General Counsel, Jenzabar, Inc.
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Why Jenzabar chose document automation
The future has many names.
For the weak, it’s unattainable.
For the fearful, it’s unknown.
For the bold, it’s ideal. – Victor Hugo
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Why Jenzabar chose document automation It was the next big step we need to take as part of our daily commitment to our constituents
• We knew what we needed to change;
• We knew what we could change;
• We knew what we could accomplish if we made the change;
• We were ready as a legal team;
• We were ready as a company; and
• We were fully supported in this endeavor.
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Before we started, we had to answer one question. . .
Who should drive customer contracts within Jenzabar?
Legal?
Finance?
Sales
Managers? Sales
People?
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What did we look for?
• We looked far and wide.
• We wanted to return who drives the contracts back to sales –
a sales centric system
• We needed it to fit in with our technology and our contracts:
– Our systems;
– Our people; and
– Our contracts and statements of work are very complex
• We needed a team like us – as committed as we our to our
customers and to our constituents.
We only had
one shot at this.
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What did we look for?
More specifically, we were looking to launch a salesperson,
contract centric system that was:
Integrated
Automated – In the generation,
tracking, and return of contracts
and statements of work
Visible
E-signature capable
Efficient
– Eliminate drafting bottlenecks
– Reduce redundancies
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So What Happened?
• Launched in October of 2015
• Processed very first customer contract start to finish in minutes!
But, what did the
sales people say?
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Unsolicited feedback following launch
By the way…just signed this – this is a
great way to handle this and kudos to
whomever got this rolling! Fantastic!
Thanks for all of your work
with the new Contract
Express system. It has made
life so much better!!!
Thank you for the
explanation and getting
back to me. I love the new
system. It is really easy to
use and I get things done so
much more efficiently and
effectively for the clients.
“ ” “ ”
“ ”
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So what happened?
• Processing times greatly decreased as well as email traffic and spreadsheet usage.
• Processing capacity increased dramatically.
• Greater visibility into contracts increased.
• Legal team more productive and more agile.
• We’re exploring what else can we do –
– Used for customer contracts initially.
– Expanded to NDAs.
– Soon to be launching with HR forms.
– Expanding to partner agreements.
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A few additional stories
• Professional services team
• Side comments and whisper complaints reduced
– actual shared conversation on contracts
• Two leaves and a trial.
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Questions?