The 'hard bit' in legal tech has changed
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The ‘hard bit’ has shifted
Just a few years back, creating an AI tool like DraftPilot would've been impossible without a team of 10-20 machine learning experts. Even then, the result would be half as powerful as what we're building.
Times have really changed. The AI is the easier part now. The real challenge? Integrating it seamlessly into a lawyer’s workflow in Microsoft Word.
The features we’re aiming for
Here's how DraftPilot works:
You create a checklist/playbook of what matters to you in a contract (or tweak our template checklists).
DraftPilot ‘reads’ the doc and flags issues.
Need a fix? It generates a redraft with track changes and explanations.
You tweak, insert, done.
You're the master, DraftPilot is your assistant.
What we’ve been wrestling with this week
One of the key other features is to ensure you can open any checklist item and ‘jump’ to the most relevant parts of the contract for that checklist item.
No hunting, no scrolling.
We've been knee-deep in the Word API this week to get it to work how you’d expect.
Two challenges:
What’s the right number: Ensuring the right number of ‘relevant’ clauses. Too many clauses, too few - it's a balancing act. The goal is for you to easily be able to ‘check’ you agree with the AI’s conclusions. We fortunately solved this last week and I think we got the balance right.
What if you edit the clause? You may be redrafting the clauses we want you to jump to. So making sure that it still recognises the clause has been the main focus this week. We figured out a new API route to get it to work. But that was after banging our head against the wall for two days.
If you’re curious, here’s how it’ll work:
Thank you
So that’s a quick glimpse into our world. We know we need to deliver a tool that's not just functional, but intuitive. A true extension of your legal skills, not a replacement.
And we believe ‘building in public’ is a great way to stay close to our community, to hit that mark. So if you’re up for it, we’ll keep sharing and we’re grateful to have you part of the journey!
Oh yeah, let me know if this works for you or if there’s something else you’d like me to write about?
I’m very open to shaking it up! Just hit reply and let me know.
Until next time,
Daniel
CEO at DraftPilot