In the coming months we’ll be establishing the framework and policies of Koncision Contract Automation. The document-assembly engine that will power it, ContractExpress, operates as you’d expect: users answer a questionnaire, and based on the answers provided the system then compiles and adjusts the preloaded contract language. But beyond that, there’s plenty of room for enhancements. Here are some of my notions:
- Each questionnaire will contain annotations explaining the issues involved in making a given selection.
- The questionnaires will reflect the principal differences among jurisdictions. This feature will doubtless expand over time.
- All contract language will comply with MSCD.
- The approach will be modular, so that, for example, the governing-law provision in one contract will use the same language as the governing-law provision in another contract, except to the extent the transaction requires otherwise.
- I plan that users will have the option of having the output documented annotated with Word comments, for example to explain to a client key features of the draft.
- I have in mind establishing an NDA “benchmark”—a version that can be used for comparison. A user who generates an NDA can distribute a version marked to show changes from the benchmark. If a reader is familiar with the benchmark, they would be able to assess the new NDA much more quickly than they would otherwise. Over time, this feature should save reviewers lots of time—reviewing NDA’s is probably even more of a nuisance than drafting them.
- Users will be offered the choice of subscribing or paying a fee for a single use. On the assumption that one-time users are looking to create their own template instead of using Koncision CA on an ongoing basis, the single-use fee will incorporate a license allowing you to copy and reuse the language in the contract you create.
- We’ll offer licenses to individuals and to organizations.
- Users will be able to track the history of a given template, to see how the questionnaire and the underlying contract language have been adjusted over time.
- I plan on using kiiac (see this March 2009 blog post) to help make sense of the precedent contracts that we’ll be reviewing.
If you have any suggestions or requests, I’d be delighted to hear them. What would it take for you to use Koncision CA?
What makes this undertaking so very useful is its "twenty-first century" approach to creating an agreement precisely drafted to perfectly fit a given situation, easily modified to bring the contracting parties to an amenable meeting of the minds. Gone is the antiquated practice of looking through a an online or looseleaf collection of agreements to see which best fits our situation (if any). Gone is the practice of "cut and paste" to cobble together an agreement we think will work.