THE IDEAS PROJECT — DAY 31

Day 31. Ahem, so one for luck? This idea occurred to me the other day, and I recalled it this morning on my run, and thought it too good an idea to not include.

OLD IDEA 1: Legal Contracts

OLD IDEA 2: Digital Readers

NEW IDEA: Dynamic contract reading layer, with quick tool tip reference to defined terms and related clauses.

Five Whys:

1. The legal profession is yet to be fully hit by a digital transformation. Old processes and technologies still permeate legal contracts.
2. Legal contracts are presented in a linear fashion. Top to bottom. Beginning to end. As they have been for years in paper form.
3. In digitizing legal contracts, we have just replicated the paper from in digital domain.
4. However, legal contracts are not linear. Contract structure is typically more of a spiders web, with cross references to defined terms and associated clauses.
5. Reading traditionally structured contracts is hard work, having to flick around the contract, to build the full picture. Much better to build a contract reading layer, that adds tool tip functionality to defined terms and related clauses when you hover over them, so you don’t have to flick through the contract.

Question: Do you ever have to do any contract reading? Do you find it painful and hard work? Would a digital tool, that automatically pops up with the relevant information, with out having to flick through the contract, help?