Comments on: The WSGR Term Sheet Generator: The Inexorable Creep of Document Assembly

By: AdamsDrafting » Blog Archive » The Problem with Law-Firm Template Initiatives

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:14:28 +0000

[...] Document assembly makes the whole template process much more efficient. But I expect that relatively few law firms, as compared to companies, will devote significant resources to contract automation. (One such firm is Wilson Sonsini; see this April 2009 blog post.) [...]

By: AdamsDrafting » Blog Archive » Contract Drafting and the Limits of “Free”

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:46:43 +0000

[...] sheet creator” and a forms library. Orricks’s term sheet creator is comparable to Wilson Sonsini’s term sheet generator, although it allows users to create term sheets for founders, for bridge financing, and for [...]

By: Scott W.

Scott W. — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:22:46 +0000

Ken, what is your feeling toward, and how does this relate to, standardization initiatives? Let’s face it: true efficiency lies in standardization. Ask the people who now use the ISDA swap agreements, or any maritime lawyer employing the world standard ship chartering (leasing) documents that have been around for eons. Even your standard form residential house sale agreement is an example. I have long felt that where “market” terms exist, document standardization should be easy, and that it really is only the preservation of lawyers’ incomes that stand in the way of true efficiency. We don’t need a building block approach, we need a researched collection of the market provisions in a sector or industry that leads to the development of stnadardized documents.

By: Corresponding with Cornelius | Compliance Building

Corresponding with Cornelius | Compliance Building — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:01:37 +0000

[...] The WSGR Term Sheet Generator: The Inexorable Creep of Document Assembly by Ken Adams of Adams Drafting [...]

By: John Gillies

John Gillies — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:22:53 +0000

Your last comment, Ken, is in line with Richard Susskind’s in his new book, “The End of Lawyers?”

John

By: Ken Adams

Ken Adams — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:56:08 +0000

Doug: Sorry for being cryptic, but I didn’t want to use this post as an excuse for getting on one of my hobby-horses. But since you ask, here’s a relevant paragraph from the “Dysfunctional Drafting” article that I link to in the post:

But it’s likely that few organizations would be willing or able to commit the resources necessary to implement and maintain such a [document-assembly system for contract drafting]. Law firm template initiatives tend to be half-hearted and short-lived. So it would make sense for law firms and law departments to outsource much of their contract drafting to a vendor that offers a broad range of document-assembly templates reflecting exceptional command of language and substance. No such vendor now exists, but it’s perhaps just a matter of time before one appears, given the inroads that document assembly has made in niche markets, notably lending and construction.

And even if a law firm does implement such a system, it’s likely that it would make the system available only to its clients rather than to the world at large.

So economies of scale plus a broader potential audience mean that an independent vendor represents a more likely route to bringing broad-based, high-quality document assembly for contract drafting to the legal market.

Ken

By: Doug Cornelius

Doug Cornelius — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:27:47 +0000

To really reap the benefits, you would want to take the answer file for the term sheet as the starting point for drafting the contracts. That would be a huge gain in efficiency.

I am not sure I understand your last point that to be game-changing the system would have to be hosted by an independent vendor.