You’ve heard all about how generative AI is changing the legal landscape, but how are legal teams actually using AI in their day to day work? Ironclad’s Director of Professional Services, Lauren Kasner,  recently sat down with Smoothie King’s Chief Legal Officer, Josh Nicosia, to learn how his legal team uses AI to accelerate contract review and save countless hours. Here are a few takeaways from their conversation.

• Keep implementation simple. If you’re implementing a new CLM, or any tool for that matter, it’s best to start small. For contracting tools, start with one or two key workflows with really straightforward contract review needs (like NDAs or influencer agreements) to demonstrate the efficacy of the tool. Then you can use the efficiency improvements to get more buy-in and help the wider implementation process go smoothly.
• Choose your players wisely. Rolling out a new tool across an entire organization, or even department, can be a Herculean task, especially if you have to fit executive buy-in somewhere in the process. Picking a test team that you already work very closely with and one you can trust to be open to new technology will help expedite the buy-in and roll out process–and contribute to ensuring its success.
• Trust but verify. AI capabilities are great, but at the end of the day, AI tools are just that–tools. The risks associated with them still have to be evaluated, and their outputs still need to be checked, at least until software capabilities become so robust that AI tool outputs can go unquestioned. And that isn’t happening anytime soon.
• Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. When it comes to the capabilities of seasoned attorneys, the refrain is often that they can move much faster on drafting and review than an AI tool can, so using the tool feels at best unnecessary and at worst a big waste of time. But the more important question is–are quick-drafting and reviewing the best uses of a skilled attorney’s time? Could they be focusing more on negotiating complex deals, or contributing to adjacent business teams’ goals? Answers to these questions will vary, but the takeaway is the same: to be efficient and effective, both at a department level and at an org-wide level, prioritizing tasks and resources based on areas of true business impact is key.

Interested in seeing how Ironclad AI can help your team drive efficiency? Talk to one of our digital contracting specialists and get a custom demo.