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Lexis+ Agreement Analysis Streamlines Contract Review With "Extractive AI" Technology
May 2, 2024
Lexis+ Agreement Analysis leverages AI, expert legal content, and a repository of more than 7 million clauses to help lawyers analyze and optimize high-value clauses in transaction agreements. Read our new TechnoLawyer Buyer's Guide report below.
Lexis+ Agreement Analysis Streamlines Contract Review With "Extractive AI" Technology
Contracts have grown in length and complexity with key clauses often buried among boilerplate provisions. In a perfect world, you would have an endless amount of time to conduct research and find the optimal language for each clause. However, lawyers already spend about 60% of their time drafting and even the most complex deals have budgets and time constraints. Enter Lexis+ Agreement Analysis, which does this heavy lifting for you in seconds to reduce drafting time and improve results.
The Killer Feature
Agreement Analysis begins with a secure upload of a draft agreement. This document remains encrypted during the analysis and is only stored during your session.
Using Extractive AI, Agreement Analysis generates an outline of the contract organized by clause. It also identifies the high-value clauses — those central to negotiations where you likely want to focus. This saves you time as you minimize having to review boilerplate language.
For each applicable clause in the contract, the proprietary extractive Large Language Model in Agreement Analysis recommends up to 13 relevant and diverse alternate clauses — an industry first. The software draws from both Market Standards (SEC EDGAR filings) and Lexis+ Practical Guidance (templates and clauses curated by expert attorneys in the Am Law 100).
Agreement Analysis identifies the source of each alternate clause it recommends. The alternate clauses from Market Standards appear alongside a variety of key data points such as deal type, authoring lawyer, consideration type, acquirer type, target entity type, governing law, deal size, and date of filing. The alternate clauses from Practical Guidance include governing law, point-of-view positioning data points, and drafting notes, which help you draft better agreements for your clients.
These alternate clauses reside in the Document Analysis tab. You can drill down to each source document. Check the boxes of the alternate clauses of interest after which the Compare and Edit view shows your current clause on top in an editable field with your selections below. Use language from the selections to edit the original and then copy and paste the edited clause back into your working draft.
"With Agreement Analysis, we're continuing to add value to the Lexis+ ecosystem, while enabling legal professionals to develop higher impact transactional documents in less time," says Jeff Pfeifer, Chief Product Officer, LexisNexis North America, UK, and Ireland. "Our solution relies on Extractive AI technology, which improves decision insights for our customers."
Lexis+ Agreement Analysis uses Extractive AI to show you alternate clauses that may better suit your client.
Other Notable Features
The alternate clauses suggested by Agreement Analysis depend on the nature of the contract. Agreement Analysis extracts this data during its analysis and presents what it finds in a dashboard. This includes deal type, point of view (whether your client is the buyer or seller), governing law, deal size, and consideration. You can adjust these settings and provide missing details after which Agreement Analysis refreshes the dashboard and its alternate clause recommendations.
The dashboard also lists the number of each type of clause in the document, the number of alternate clauses and underlying source documents, and related Practical Guidance* tools and resources. You can explore any of these with a click.
Tools include State Law Comparisons and Drafting Checklists to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. The Market Standards tool provides insights such as the most negotiated provisions, best practices for key deal points, and recent trends. You can also compare similar deals across several key parameters.
What Else Should You Know?
Currently, Agreement Analysis supports M&A lawyers who need to draft merger, asset, and stock purchase agreements. Additional practice areas and Generative AI features are in development. Agreement Analysis won the 2024 Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Award for M&A and Transaction Innovation.
Neil J. Squillante founded TopLaw and serves as its publisher. As a young litigator working on a high-profile trial, Neil witnessed the discrepancy between what happened in the courtroom and what the media reported. Neil created TopLaw to provide fellow lawyers and law firm personnel with reliable information. Many consider TopLaw newsletters the only ones they need. Previously, Neil practiced commercial litigation at Am Law 100 firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law and his B.A. from Duke University. At UCLA, Neil served as a Managing Editor of UCLA Law Review.
