Clarilis Automation of Legal Opinions

Legal opinions are ideal candidates for deep automation. A large number of leading firms have chosen to automate their opinions with Clarilis.

Our experienced banking and finance PSLs (averaging over ten years PQE) lead the team that design, build, test, deliver, and maintain legal opinion automations for you, based on your firm’s templates / model forms.

The more complex the opinion, the greater the rewards of automation. The Clarilis approach is far more sophisticated than simply resolving square brackets or filling gaps in a template opinion.

 

Legal Opinions 4 - Initial Details scaled2-1

 

Legal Opinions are an ideal fit for deep automation

Whilst legal opinions may not always be the longest of documents, they can be complex, often running to hundreds of thousands of permutations of logic when automated deeply. They need to be underpinned by a highly structured approach, with guidance and risk control at its very heart - all whilst maintaining the flexibility for the evolution of the templates / model forms over time. This makes them the perfect candidate for automation with Clarilis.

Clarilis automation focuses on the structure of legal opinions, not just the square brackets and gaps to fill. Some of the many considerations are as follows:

Entities

The Clarilis questionnaire collects information about the obligors, including their jurisdiction of incorporation and company type. Statements in the opinion are then tailored accordingly. This is especially helpful if you need to cater for multiple obligors and/or foreign obligors. The automation will ensure that, for instance, foreign obligors are excluded from ‘capacity’ opinions.

Legal Opinions 5 - Obligors with note Scaled

Documents

Information is gathered about the documents that are to be covered by the opinion. The automation can create multiple categories of documents, and ensure that each opinion catches only the correct category. This is especially helpful if you need to cater for multiple types of document, such as foreign law documents and security documents. The automation will ensure, for instance, that foreign documents are excluded from ‘enforceability’ opinions.
Legal Opinions 4 - Initial Details scaled2

Qualifications and assumptions

Clarilis automation links each opinion to the accompanying qualifications and assumptions. This is especially helpful if you need to tailor your opinions to the transaction in hand; you can be confident that if you add or remove an opinion from the draft, the appropriate qualifications and assumptions will move with it.

Legal Opinions 6 - Governing Law Scaled

How Clarilis is transforming banking and finance teams:

  • Remove risk with the consistency, adherence to firm policy, and accuracy that deep automation provides

  • Have comfort that your sophisticated automation will always keep pace with your templates / model forms

  • Maintain the quality of opinions that your firm issues

  • Reduce drafting and review time

  • Improve margins and reduce write-offs

  • Support remote supervision and mentoring 

  • Increase capacity

  • Aid recruitment and retention

Jill Moore – Senior Counsel for Risk and DPO, Burness Paull

“We have worked with Clarilis to automate a wide spectrum of documents including some particularly complex ones.  An example would be our legal opinions which contain a vast number of options and permutations: the simplicity of the questionnaire that Clarilis were able to create belies the complexity of the automation which sits behind it.  This has made a huge difference to the team and allows the fee earners to focus on providing legal advice rather than becoming bogged down in a repetitive drafting task."  

Jill Moore, Senior Counsel for Risk and DPO, Burness Paull 


Why Clarilis?

The complexity involved in automating legal opinions means that automation is rarely achieved to any meaningful extent with traditional automation toolkits. If you are already using an automated legal opinion, how much extra editing do you need to undertake once a draft has been produced by your firm's automation technology?

Speak to our team to see what you could achieve with a Clarilis automation.
Legal Opinions 5 - Obligors with note Scaled
Automation of Legal Opinions Factsheet

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Automation of Legal Opinions

Find out how the Clarilis approach mitigates risk, saves drafting time, and enables delegation to more junior lawyers.


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With Clarilis' on rails drafting experience, there’s less margin for human error.

Humans are fallible, especially when working long hours and operating under significant time pressure – as is often the case with lawyers. Legal Opinions are fraught with risk and there is no margin for error in the output. The Clarilis platform captures best practice and reduces the risk of human error, ensuring law firms draft accurate and high-quality documentation time and time again. 

This consistency, combined with extensive built in guidance and verification within the Clarilis questionnaire, means that drafting can be delegated to more junior lawyers without increasing risk, freeing up senior resource to add greater value to transactions overall. 

The impact on supervision and formal review is also material; Clarilis enables faster review of first drafts, typically reducing the review time of a senior lawyer by 50%.

ROL speed efficiency consistency page 16
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Banking and finance precedents are an ideal fit for automation!

Download today and read more about how deep automation allows banking and finance lawyers to manage risk and deal with increased workload and pricing pressures by taking days out of the drafting process. This increases capacity and frees up time to focus on the parts of the deal that really make a difference.


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