Document assembly and contract automation specialists

4th May 2004 - By Richard Susskind

MICROSOFT has embraced automated document assembly - for its own internal use. After a successful pilot, its legal and corporate affairs department in Redmond, Washington State, settled on DealBuilder ( www.business-integrity.com ) as the tool for the production of the vast range of the corporation's end user software licence agreements (these govern the terms and conditions of use of given software and come in shrink-wrap or click-through form).

Master contracts for each product will be drafted in Word, converted into DealBuilder templates and then Microsoft lawyers will be able to generate appropriate agreements, allowing for variations in language and governing law. Many other companies could similarly use document-assembly techniques to automate their standard documentation. However, given that most in-house legal departments will lack the internal resource to develop such systems, who is best placed to build them? Law firms are prime candidates here but this challenge is likely to separate the staid from the entrepreneurial. The former will say that they are lawyers and not publishers, while the latter will recognise a commercial opportunity to package their knowledge and expertise in a new way and so meet their clients' needs in a new innovative way.

The author consults and lectures internationally on technology and the law. He is IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice and Gresham Professor of Law. e-mail: richard@susskind.com

Business Integrity - Leaders in document assembly, contract automation and document automation