It’s a UK Bank Holiday on Monday, so AL’s taking a long weekend while the sun still shines. See you on Tuesday, Aug 26th. But, before then, here’s three surveys and an important client win.
A survey by SpotDraft of 115 in-house legal departments, found that 49% of legal teams still manage contracts using email, Word documents and shared folders. The findings highlight ‘a striking disconnect between widespread technology investments and fundamental contract management processes, which remain largely unchanged’, they said – and they’re spot on!
They also found, based on their sample, that:
‘56% of legal teams take a week or more to close standard contracts like NDAs, with some taking 15+ days for routine agreements.
Only 12% have achieved full automation of their contract processes.’
Interestingly, they found a correlation between business growth and contract time: ‘Fintech and IT industries, which lead with 3-4 day contract turnaround cycles, also show stable 20-21% year-over-year growth. Meanwhile, manufacturing companies with lower automation adoption show only 10% revenue growth, while media and entertainment companies lag further with just 7% growth.’
Akshay Verma, COO of SpotDraft and former legal operations leader at Meta and Coinbase, commented: ‘Companies that automate their legal processes aren’t just working faster, they’re growing faster too.’
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BigHand’s latest survey (see here) has found that work-life balance demands are driving an increasing number of lawyers to leave their current jobs, with all segments from associates to equity partners seeing a rise in departures (see table below.)
The survey found that: ‘Whereas in 2024, the main reasons for staff attrition were professional development (26%) and salary (23%) – particularly among senior associates – this year hybrid working (22%) and work/life balance (20%) sit at the top of the list, although concerns over professional development and salary remain strong (18% for both among senior associates).
‘Furthermore, there is an increasing number of associates moving to in-house/corporate or leaving the profession altogether. In the last 12 months, firms report almost twice as many junior and senior associates leaving ‘because they no longer intend to practice law’.’
Proof perhaps that although many law firms are now driving their people back into the office (and some staff really like that), the number of lawyers wanting to leave in search of a better life is slowly increasing at the same time. In short, are we seeing a bifurcation here?
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StructureFlow has released a report showing how uptake of their ‘visual intelligence’ platform, i.e. mapping transaction elements rather than having to rely on text alone, has grown rapidly and that ‘deals are executed 25% faster’ using their approach.
One finding stood out though: practice management was tied along with corporate work as the area where lawyers most used the visual mapping method. One would expect it for deal work, but it also makes sense for practice management, given the growing complexity and size of law firms today.
More about StructureFlow here.
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And Eudia, an ‘augmented intelligence platform’ focused on inhouse and which recently bought ALSP Johnson Hana, has bagged a $1.25m contract-handling deal with the US Department of the Air Force. A small deal perhaps, but potentially an important one….
They said that this ‘collaborative engagement aims to position the US Air Force at the forefront of AI innovation in government operations’ and will start with ‘augmented contract review, [which] addresses the Department of Defense’s historically lengthy processes’.
Not the biggest deal in the world, but certainly one that matters to Eudia, given that the US Government has a lot of contracts across its many, many departments, and if they can impress here Eudia may well win more of such work.
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And also, here’s this week’s AL TV Product Walk Through – a new challenger to the productivity platform market: ClausePilot – and from Austria as well!
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OK, that is really all for now. Have a great (long) weekend folks. AL is back on Tuesday 26 August.
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Legal Innovators Conferences in New York and London – Both In November ’25 – Inhouse Day and Law Firm Day at each conference.
If you’d like to stay ahead of the legal AI curve….then come along to Legal Innovators New York, Nov 19 + 20, where the brightest minds will be sharing their insights on where we are now and where we are heading.
And also, Legal Innovators UK – Nov 4 + 5 + 6
Both events, as always, are organised by the awesome Cosmonauts team!
Please get in contact with them if you’d like to take part.
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