Leading law firms subscribe at launch; immediately benefit from low cost and ease of use
Business Integrity launched ContractExpress.com, the world’s first premium document assembly product to be delivered exclusively as “software as a service,” requiring no set-up costs or infrastructure. ContractExpress.com builds on Business Integrity’s trusted DealBuilder technology, which is used by many of the world’s leading law firms and corporate legal departments. Adding scalable, secure web-based delivery, it is designed to extend the reach of document assembly from large law firms to the medium and small practice market, as well as corporate law departments looking to sidestep complicated corporate IT protocols.
The service, available at contractexpress.com, makes powerful document assembly easier for lawyers to deploy and use than ever before. ContractExpress.com offers users Word-based template design tools, workspaces and a “how-to” help system, all at a low monthly cost. “Document assembly has always been something of a ‘Cinderella’ technology, never quite making the big time, said Richard Newton, Business Integrity’s, Executive Vice President. “We put that down to two factors: the cost of IT set up and the difficulty in creating useful document templates. Most lawyers aren’t interested in becoming XML programmers.” ContractExpress.com solves both problems as a simple-to-use, cloud-based solution.
Most lawyers don’t use document assembly, despite the pundits’ predictions of it being a game changing technology, especially in a world of fixed fees and reduced legal budgets. ContractExpress.com is designed to change that. Template design is easy, using only Microsoft Word and a mark-up style that follows the way lawyers naturally draft documents. The product also requires no IT investment and is free for the first 60 days with a low monthly fee thereafter. “We are trying to put technology that once was the preserve of a select few firms within reach of any practitioner,” added Newton.
Several law firms in the US, UK and Europe have signed up for ContractExpress.com from launch, including international firm Simmons & Simmons. David Fitch, Director of Knowledge Management at Simmons & Simmons, commented, “We see document assembly as a necessary tool to maintain an innovative, competitive and sustainable practice. At the heart of ContractExpress.com is DealBuilder, which has a proven pedigree as a document assembly application and is capable of meeting our exacting requirements. Cloud delivery makes the technology easier and more flexible to deploy to our fee earners and clients”.
While newly available in the cloud, Business Integrity’s ContractExpress DealBuilder “on premise” solution has been implemented at dozens of blue-chip law firms and law departments around the world. “ContractExpress is great, and is the future of document assembly,” said Scott Rechtschaffen, Managing Shareholder of Knowledge Management at Littler Mendelson in San Francisco. “ContractExpress enables us to deliver more value to our clients for less cost,” added Ellen Kinsinger, CIO at Poyner Spruill in Raleigh, NC.
For more information or a free 60-day trial, please visit www.ContractExpress.com.
Leading international law firm Simmons & Simmons has licenced ContractExpress.com to provide its lawyers and clients with a firm wide document assembly capability.
ContractExpress.com from Business Integrity is the first premium document assembly application to be offered as a Cloud or software as a service platform. It builds on the trusted DealBuilder technology which is used by many of the worlds leading law firms and corporations. ContractExpress.com enables users to quickly and easily design and generate automated documents, without the hassle and cost of any IT support.
David Fitch, Director of Knowledge Management at Simmons & Simmons commented “We see document assembly as a necessary tool to maintain an innovative, competitive and sustainable practice. At the heart of ContractExpress.com is DealBuilder which has a proven pedigree as a document assembly application and is capable of meeting our exacting requirements. Cloud delivery makes the technology easier and more flexible to deploy to our fee earners and clients”.
Business Integrity has launched ContractExpress for SharePoint, a software solution that offers a faster, more compliant way to create and manage business contracts.
ContractExpress for SharePoint offers full contract lifecycle management features from contract creation and execution to end of life archiving and is delivered on the highly successful Microsoft SharePoint platform.
Unlike other contract management products, which are designed to be used by specialists, ContractExpress for SharePoint offers a unique solution for legally safe, self-service contract creation which enables business users, rather than lawyers or contract managers, to generate compliant legal agreements in minutes rather than days or weeks.
ContractExpress for SharePoint is designed to meet the requirements of large corporations seeking to streamline business processes involving the execution of business contracts. With legally safe, self service contract creation, cumbersome processes can be shortened allowing corporations to execute business processes faster and accelerate revenue recognition. ContractExpress for Sharepoint is delivered either on premise or as a hosted solution.
National Grid, the electricity and gas network operator in the UK and US is one of the high profile corporations who have deployed Contract Express for SharePoint from launch.
To see the complete Press Release, click here
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, one of Silicon Valley's best-known law firms and a leader in representing start-up technology ventures, launches the DealBuilder powered WSGR Term Sheet Generator.
The TSG is a publicly available online tool that allows entrepreneurs and investors to generate an initial draft of a term sheet for a preferred stock financing. By answering a series of questions, users are guided through the principal variables contained in a venture financing term sheet. The result is a draft that is intended to be useful in deal discussions between entrepreneurs and investors and in crafting a final, customized term sheet with the help of attorneys.
"It is precisely the kind of tool that progressive clients in the financial services community are asking for," says Richard Susskind, author of "The End of Lawyers, Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services", by Oxford University Press. "It should enable the input of first-rate legal expertise earlier in the life cycle of deals than is ordinarily possible and the production of consistently higher quality term sheets."
To experience the WSGR TSG in action, click here
RehabCare Group of St Louis, MO, has licensed ContractExpress for SharePoint to enable RehabCare’s business development executives to quickly and compliantly create new customer sales agreements.
With more than 25 years experience, RehabCare is a leading provider of physical rehabilitation program management services in over 1,200 hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other long-term care facilities throughout the United States. RehabCare also owns and operates rehabilitation and long-term acute care hospitals.
Tim Allen, who heads up Business Integrity's North American operations, stated, "We are proud to welcome RehabCare to our rapidly growing list of customers who recognize the benefits of accelerating business and improving compliance through the use of ContractExpress."
Tom Mulé, head of customer services for North America, added, "We can deliver ContractExpress either as a hosted solution or as in-house installation. It’s whatever suits the customer best. RehabCare has decided to install ContractExpress in its corporate intranet from the get go. This is a further demonstration of the acceptance by corporate America of the underlying Microsoft SharePoint platform".
Business Integrity is pleased to announce that it will be sponsoring “Drafting Clearer Contracts,” Ken Adams’s webcasts and seminars on using clearer contract language to save time and money, reduce risk, and become more competitive.
The webcasts will be available through West LegalEdcenter; click here for information on the first webcast, “The Front and Back of the Contract.” The U.S. seminars too are being offered through West LegalEdcenter; the Canadian seminars are being offered through Osgoode Professional Development.
Tim Allen, Business Integrity’s VP Americas, has developed a close working relationship with Adams. “With his rigorous dissection of contract usages and his focus on clarity and consistency in contract language, Ken has essentially created a new discipline and made it his own,” says Allen. “His book A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting has been aptly described as the bible for contract drafters.”
BI recognizes that its efforts to help companies and law firms make their contract process much more efficient are closely allied to Adams’s campaign to establish ground rules for clear and concise contract language. “For a document-assembly solution to be effective, the template language has to be rigorous and streamlined. Nothing is gained by loading muddled and archaic language on a document-assembly system.”
And BI recognizes that an audience that’s committed to clear contract language would likely also be receptive to contract automation. “Ken is developing an international reputation,” says Allen. “We think his seminars and webcasts will be an effective vehicle for getting our name, and our message, in front of a broad audience.”
For his part, Adams says, “Tim and I quickly realized the affinity between document assembly and my approach to contract language. The dysfunction in mainstream contract language is in large measure the result of an inefficient process. ContractExpress DealBuilder, BI’s sophisticated and intuitive document-assembly solution, allows organizations to upgrade their contract language vastly more quickly than they could otherwise.”
In addition to writing about contract language and giving public webcasts and seminars, Ken Adams conducts in-house seminars at companies and law firms, acts as consultant and expert witness, and is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His website and blog are at www.adamsdrafting.com.