What slows contract review down?

Most contracts a firm sees are variations on a theme. A client's supplier agreement, a landlord's lease, a customer's services agreement, a framework's call-off terms. The reviewer is not reading to understand a new kind of document. They are reading to find where this one differs from what the firm or its client normally accepts.

That comparison is done in the reviewer's head. They hold the standard positions in memory, read clause by clause, and mark up the differences. It needs a qualified person, it takes time, and it varies with who happens to pick it up.

Why does the same comparison get done again on every contract?

A firm's standard positions are usually known but not written down in a form anyone can check against. Liability caps, indemnities, payment terms, termination rights, data protection clauses: the partner knows what is acceptable. Each new reviewer relearns it from past files, and each contract is compared from scratch.

The result is repeated work and uneven outcomes. Two reviewers may mark up the same clause differently. A position the firm changed last year may still appear in a junior's markup, copied from an older file.

What is the real cost of reviewing contracts by hand?

Count the contracts reviewed in a typical month, split by type. For each type, estimate the time from receipt to a marked up draft, and note the grade of the person doing it. Multiply hours by charge-out rate for each, and multiply the monthly total by twelve. That is the time cost, whether it is billed, absorbed in a fixed fee or spent on the firm's own suppliers.

Add the cost of delay: deals waiting for a markup, and in-house reviews that hold up a supplier appointment. The unbillable hours calculator will turn your estimates into a yearly figure, and the audit helps decide whether contract review is the right job to tackle first.

What does a rebuilt contract review process look like?

Your positions, written down once

For each contract type, the firm's standard position on each key clause is recorded, along with acceptable fallbacks and the points that always go to a partner. This is the playbook the review works from.

A first review, prepared automatically

When a contract arrives, the process finds each relevant clause wherever it sits in the document, compares it with the playbook and produces a review note:

  • clauses that match your standard, marked as such so they can be read quickly;
  • clauses that differ, with the difference explained and your usual response drafted;
  • clauses that are missing, where your standard expects one;
  • anything the playbook does not cover, flagged for a person.

A qualified person decides

The reviewer works through the note, accepts or changes each suggestion, and decides every point. The process never marks a contract as approved. The markup that goes back to the client or counterparty is the reviewer's.

How does the reviewer's day change?

The reviewer starts from a structured note rather than a blank read. Time moves from finding the differences to deciding what to do about them, which is the part that needs their training. Junior lawyers and contract managers learn the firm's positions faster, because every note explains the standard it was measured against.

Partners see consistent markups across the team, and when the firm changes a position it changes in one place.

Which firms review the most contracts?

Law firms advising on commercial contracts, leases and supply agreements for clients. Managed service providers reviewing customer terms and service level schedules. Facilities management companies checking client contracts and subcontracts. Recruitment firms handling client terms of business and framework agreements. Property managers working through leases and management agreements.

If the task is to read many documents and extract facts rather than to test a contract against your positions, document review is the closer fit. For checking the firms you buy from, see supplier vetting.

How is contract review rebuilt in 30 days?

The first week is about the playbook. We sit with the partner or head of legal and the reviewers, choose one contract type, and write down the standard position and fallbacks for each clause from recent marked up contracts. Weeks two and three build the comparison on that playbook and run it on contracts that have just come in, with a qualified reviewer checking every note. In week four the reviewers are trained and new contracts of that type go through it. Support runs for 30 days after that. The full approach is on how we work.