At Litera, we’ve spent the last few years changing our approach. We’re no longer creating point solutions to discrete problems; instead, we carefully study and streamline the overall workflows that lawyers use to create their documents, collaborate on them, and even use them in transactions. That’s how we realized that there was a sticking point in the way that lawyers were reusing clauses in their contracts and other documents.
We’ve also ensured that when we find a problem, we’ve got the resources to create a solution. Today, we’re proud to announce the new Anonymize feature in Clause Companion.
The Problem: Changing Key Information When Reusing Clause Content
With a lot on their plates, lawyers use the fastest process to draft high-quality documents – by starting from an existing document that is reasonably similar. Newer lawyers and law practices are at a disadvantage because they have less experience and knowledge of relevant work to reuse, while experienced lawyers and law firms have an abundance of existing work product to sift through.
Through this practice, clauses might be saved in many different places. Some are in emails from sharing with colleagues. Others may be on local hard drives, thumb drives, firm servers, or cloud-based storage drives. Some are in old agreements and other documents, wherever those may be. Sorting through an entire content library to identify and reuse the best (and most up-to-date) clauses takes a lot of time that could be better spent on higher-value tasks.
Then, once the right clauses are found, lawyers must examine them to ensure all the old information is replaced with the correct details for the current client and deal. It can take hours to review documents—and review them again—to make sure everything is updated. It’s easy to miss critical details, and even the slightest human error damages the reputation of the firm and extends the time to deal completion.
We’ve seen lawyers sifting through their clauses meticulously, over and over, looking for information that needed to be adjusted for each reuse of that clause. So, we designed a feature that makes this process safer and faster.
The Solution: Clause Companion Anonymize
Now, with the newest Anonymize feature in Clause Companion, lawyers can safely reuse content faster without ever leaving Microsoft Word. When users save a clause or document to their clause library, Clause Companion automatically detects data that varies and is deal-specific, including names, salutations, dates, addresses, numbers, and more. The user can then quickly create a reusable template by reviewing the found information and replacing it with their choice of blank lines, symbols, or variables. The anonymized document can then be saved in the Clause Companion library for later use as a ready-to-go template.
The Anonymize feature in Clause Companion is a new, flexible solution for document creation – made for lawyers to save, reuse, and leverage their best content without needing to be a document expert or interrupting the workflow. It reinforces our commitment to smarter drafting and overall document workflow management. Check out the new feature in Clause Companion— and come say hi to us at Legaltech New York!