Moore & Tibbits is a long-established regional law firm with a well-established commercial property team advising businesses, developers, investors and landowners across a diverse portfolio of real estate matters. With six fee earners handling everything from landlord and tenant matters to residential developments and high-value commercial transactions, the team faces a constant challenge of balancing competing deadlines while continuing to provide high-quality legal advice.
This has led Moore & Tibbits, like many commercial property practices, to explore how legal technology can enhance the delivery of its services. We spoke to James Williams, Commercial Property Partner, about why the firm adopted Clarilis, and how standardising document drafting is helping the team support junior lawyers and create greater capacity for the work that adds the greatest value to its clients.
"The pressure is relentless," says James, reflecting on the day-to-day reality of modern commercial property practice. With multiple transactions progressing simultaneously and clients’ expectations constantly evolving, it's no surprise that conversations about document automation often centre on how technology can help lawyers work faster. After all, time savings are easy to measure and frequently become the benchmark for success.
But Moore & Tibbits were looking for more than a solution that could help them draft documents faster.
"Clarilis has cut down the time taken to produce a lease and associated documents to around 20 minutes," says James. "But while those time savings are significant, they weren't the biggest driver for us."
The firm's real interest was in the wider impact document automation could have across the team. Historically, legal drafting has relied on lawyers searching for the right precedent before manually adapting it to reflect the specifics of the transaction. While experienced lawyers develop efficient habits over time, those habits differ from one person to the next, creating variation across a firm's drafting practice. For junior lawyers, that variation makes it even harder to know which precedent to use, which clauses to amend, and what issues to consider. It's an approach that remains commonplace in regional firms, and it's exactly why Moore & Tibbits turned to Clarilis.
To support its commercial property practice, Moore & Tibbits introduced Clarilis Real Estate Plus, a suite of automated precedents covering everything from leases and asset management to sales, options and pre-emptions and all related ancillary documents. Based on the industry-standard MCL precedents and quality content from Gowling WLG, with automation maintained by Clarilis' team of professional support lawyers, firms are always working from an up-to-date document.
For a smaller team without a large in-house IT function, getting started mattered almost as much as the drafting itself. "We were up and running within a matter of days," says James. "It wasn't some huge project we had to plan around, which for a busy team made a real difference."
Instead of relying on individual lawyers to select and adapt precedent documents, Real Estate Plus guides Moore & Tibbits’ lawyers through a series of matter-specific questions before automatically generating a solid first draft in Word, with all relevant ancillary documents.
"It's about standardising drafting, so you've got that continuity across the team," says James. "Clarilis gives us a really strong first draft, but our lawyers still have the flexibility to apply their legal judgement and to tailor the document to the transaction, making sure it reflects the particular client's requirements."
For James, one of the greatest benefits of using Clarilis is the confidence it gives the more junior lawyers in the team. Rather than searching for the right precedent, they begin with a structured drafting process that guides them through the key considerations for each transaction. Built-in drafting notes and guidance help them understand their choices and learn whilst doing.
"It's now a lot easier for them to do it," says James. "Clarilis gives them more confidence to produce a closer to final first draft, and me much greater confidence in what they’ve done."
A key benefit of this approach is that the process not only captures the details of each transaction but also encourages lawyers to think through the legal and commercial decisions that underpin it.
"It prompts thought-provoking questions rather than just amending a document that sits in front of you, which also helps with training," explains James.
And the impact of this approach extends beyond the junior lawyer. Working with stronger first drafts enables supervisors to spend less time correcting missing clauses or inconsistent drafting, and more time on the work that delivers the greatest value to their clients.
“We get to spend time on the things we really trained for, in-depth advice and helping our clients,” says James. “I can’t believe all firms aren’t using it. That said, I see no reason to encourage the competition to catch up.”
For Moore & Tibbits, the value of document automation wasn’t something to be measured in minutes saved alone. Their priority was ensuring every lawyer, regardless of experience, could produce consistently high-quality first drafts.
"Real Estate Plus has dramatically changed the way our team approaches drafting," says James, "helping us improve reliability and maintain quality across the team, while giving lawyers greater confidence in the process."
It's the confidence, consistency and capacity Clarilis creates across the entire commercial property team that has made the biggest difference. By removing much of the repetition and inconsistency from everyday drafting, the firm's lawyers can focus more of their time on applying legal judgement, delivering the tailored advice clients value most.
Discover how Clarilis Real Estate Plus can help your commercial property team standardise drafting and create more time for high-value legal work. Book a consultation today.