In this blog, you will learn how generative AI is empowering legal teams, the benefits of implementing gen AI in contract reviews, and the most important points to consider when deploying generative AI. It is a technology that is becoming increasingly popular within the legal community. Read on!
Gen AI for Contract Management
Legal work is lots of reading, writing, and double-checking.
Contracts, emails, clauses, summaries, you're constantly reading, writing, and editing.
Generative AI takes some of the burden off your shoulders.
It can read documents and provide you with quick summaries.
It picks out the important bits, deadlines, responsibilities, and missing clauses so you don't have to read every word.
It can generate a first draft for you if you want to get something down.
Whether it's a clause, a letter, or a whole agreement, you send it a prompt, and it provides you with a starting point.
You're still the professional. You're still in charge.
But the AI does the drudge work, so you're not sitting there writing and rewriting boilerplate language for hours.
It also gets smarter over time. The more you utilize it, the more it knows your preferred tone of voice, language, and contract template.
That means greater consistency between documents and less revision down the road.
Make Compliance Less Complicated
Maintaining your documents in compliance with rules and policy requires effort.
No matter how great your process is, it's simple to overlook a clause or remember a regulation change.
Generative AI is able to catch those things. It reviews your documents and highlights anything that seems suspicious.
It compares your language to your policies or established legal norms and demonstrates to you what may need to be tweaked.
This isn't substituting for legal judgment, it's assisting it. You still have the final call, but now you have a better starting place.
It also assists in keeping language uniform across documents so you're not rewriting the same clause five different times.
Find What You Need, Fast
If your team is working with a big collection of legal documents, having access to the right document at the right moment can be frustrating.
Generative AI revolutionizes that by keeping your documents organized in a wiser manner.
It organizes by type, date, parties, whatever you care about most. You can query it with a simple English question and it will bring up what you're looking for.
It also keeps everything current. You'll be aware of which version is the latest, what's been altered, and who implemented the changes. That reduces confusion and makes your file system simpler to believe in and utilize.
Negotiate Smarter
Negotiating requires a combination of planning, timing, and open communication.
Negotiating also requires time, if you're attempting to identify weaknesses or author alternatives on the fly.
Generative AI assists by going over contracts, identifying patterns, and proposing adjustments.
If you think a clause is risky or uncertain, flag it. If you want a more robust version of a section, it can provide one.
You can also use it to anticipate counterpoints or construct stronger replies.
It keeps you aware of the overall picture so you can enter the debate better informed and more assured. You're still in command; it only accelerates matters.
Make Legal Writing More Accessible
Not all readers are attorneys. Generative AI helps in making dense legal writing more readable, but not at the expense of content.
It rephrases complex, heavy text into plain English.
It assists you in discovering easier words and shorter sentences.
This makes it simpler for other departments, partners, or clients to comprehend the documents they're reading or signing.
It's also useful for internal documents, policies, and communications.
When the language is simple, you spend less time explaining and more time accomplishing things.
You can still have all the legal details, just in a form that's simpler for all to understand.
According to a Gartner report, by 2027, half of all organizations will leverage AI for contract negotiations.
Furthermore, it says that generative AI takes center stage and that procurement team leaders believe it could potentially impact contract management and sourcing.
How Does Generative AI Make a Difference for Legal Reviews?
Legal document reviewing requires time, patience, and attention.
And even with care, errors creep in, clauses are overlooked, language is misunderstood, and minor errors lead to major hold-ups.
That's where generative AI comes in. It never takes your words, but it serves you with a boost.
It accelerates mundane reviews, identifies risks, and provides clarity when you need it most. From reviewing a pile of NDAs, examining contract terms, to reviewing drafts against one another, AI can be your second pair of eyes.
Here's how it accelerates your routine review process, provides clarity, and makes sense:
Saves Time
It takes hours to review documents manually. You're reading each paragraph, each clause, and trying not to miss a single thing. Generative AI accelerates this with the first pass for you.
It reads the document, extracts the key elements, and highlights anything that pops out, non-standard clauses, missing terms, or inconsistencies.
You can then concentrate on the most important things, rather than reading every word.
If you're drafting similar contracts, such as evaluating multiple supplier contracts, it can compare them for you and highlight differences.
That reduces surprises down the road and frees up time for high-level strategy work.
Makes It More Accurate
Even veteran legal practitioners make mistakes sometimes, such as a date change, an additional clause, or liability-shifting language.
AI doesn't become fatigued, distracted, or hurried.
It examines documents with consistency, each and every time.
It searches for trends, reads for compliance, and warns you of risks you may have overlooked.
Whether it's a missing indemnity clause or a compliance problem, AI warns it immediately.
That added level of review equates to fewer mistakes and fewer problems sneaking through to sign-off.
Summarizes Key Points
Contracts are often lengthy and convoluted. Even if you're accustomed to reading them, it takes time to dissect what's most important.
Generative AI assists by condensing major points in simple language.
It identifies main terms such as payment terms, termination provisions, timelines, and obligations, and presents a clear overview.
No filler, no fluff, just you need to understand.
This is especially helpful when you’re briefing a team, updating a stakeholder, or reviewing documents on a tight schedule.
Contracts Are Clear to Everyone
Not everyone reading a contract is a lawyer. Sometimes, stakeholders from sales, finance, or operations need to review and understand what’s in an agreement, but legal language can get in the way.
Generative AI can turn jargon-filled legal phrases into plain English.
It makes contracts understandable to all parties, cutting back on confusion and time-consuming questions back and forth.
That way, your team remains on the same page, everyone's in agreement, and decision-making is quicker, with less confusion.
Streamlined Workflows and Collaboration
Legal work does not exist in a vacuum. You require feedback from others, approvals, and understanding who is working on what.
Generative AI assists with all of that.
It tasks out, manages changes, and allows several individuals to review and collaborate on documents simultaneously.
Rather than prolonged email threads, comments can be inserted right into the review.
If you want assistance crafting a clause or tweaking language, the AI can provide drafts immediately.
You don't have to begin anew or rummage through templates; it provides you with choices, and you decide what best suits.
Risk Identification and Mitigation
Perhaps the greatest asset AI provides is the identification of risk early on.
It doesn't merely scan documents, it examines trends and identifies issues before they are problems.
For instance, it may observe that a vendor agreement always misses a limitation of liability clause.
Or it may recognize repeated delays associated with ambiguous payment terms.
You receive real-time alerts, insights, and recommendations. That enables you to detect problems, act promptly, and create improved contracts in the long run.
It's not merely a review; it's easier risk management.
How to Use Generative AI the Right Way?
It can do so much, but only if you implement it correctly.
Begin by choosing the correct use cases, such as contract review, clause drafting, or summarizing.
Don't attempt to do everything in one go. Prioritize where you waste the most time or encounter most mistakes.
Ensure your contract data is trained on with your AI solutions, rather than off-the-shelf templates.
That way, you get accurate returns that match your business terms. Use a solution that secures your data and is transparent around who's in control of what.
Above all else, keep humans involved. AI is meant to augment your legal team, not take their place.
Create a process where AI does the drudge work, and your team makes the ultimate decision.
Take Control of Your Contracts with Dock 365
Dock 365 combines the power of Microsoft 365 with built-in AI tools to make contract management simpler, faster, and safer.
You don't have to change platforms or learn an entire new system, just integrate it into what your team is already using.
We have a team of experts to walk you through the platform at every step of the process to ensure smooth and effective implementation.
Schedule a free demo today to see how Gen AI can improve your contract management process.
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