Lawtech showcase: CC Dr@ft, Clifford Chance Applied Solutions

About CC Dr@ft

1. What is CC Dr@ft and who is it for?

CC Dr@ft is a full-service document automation solution sold by Clifford Chance Applied Solutions (CCAS), Clifford Chance's digital legal subsidiary.

It combines a powerful document automation platform with a solution design, onboarding and maintenance service. We work with all types of in-house legal and business teams across all sectors.

2. How does it work? What are the key features?

CC Dr@ft enables legal and business teams to create both legal and non-legal documents from templates straight from their desktop. All a user needs to do is log on to CC Dr@ft, start the relevant questionnaire and answer a series of guided questions to create their documents in PDF or Word format.

These are tailored to different types of users, including lawyers and those with no legal experience.

All types of documents can be created, legal or non-legal, but those that are best suited are those that are created on a repetitive basis. For example:

• security and credit agreements
• sale and purchase agreements (SPAs)
• non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
• leases
• licences
• employment contracts
• documents with large review requirements.

We can also build in workflows and sign-off controls where these would be of benefit. This means users don't need to be a lawyer to draft a legal document – for example, it could be an HR team, compliance team or transactional teams.

Other features include the ability to:

• collaborate in a transparent way across multiple teams to create documents
• store documents (if you wish to include this feature)
• collect data across your documents and analyse or report on the data

There are also many standard integrations to maximise efficiency as much as possible, for example:

• e-signature platforms
• a built-in Companies House look-up
• CRM system integrations and document storage
• contract management system integrations

Bespoke integrations can be built, where required.

3. What are the main benefits for clients?

The main benefit is time savings, which in turn creates significant financial savings. Users have fed back that they save between 60% and 90% of time compared to their original processes.

Additional benefits include:

• the reduced risk of drafting errors
• controlled autonomy of drafting for business teams (freeing up time for the legal teams)
• the ability to collect and analyse data across all documents you create
• ease of updating templates – any updates to terms need only be made once, and are then applicable to all your subscribers

The benefit of CC Dr@ft over other document automation solutions is our service. Our team not only have vast experience of the legal sector, but also work closely with Clifford Chance sector and legal product experts to ensure creative solutions are provided and there is ease of communication (they speak your language!).

4. Are any case studies available?

You can find some on the Applied Solutions website.

5. What does the setup and implementation process look like?

It's here that CC Dr@ft really comes into its own. We take time to fully scope your current process and where you would like to get to. We then create a bespoke demo for your use case to ensure you are comfortable with the proposal.

Once you are happy, we create the full solution, which includes extensive testing. The next stage is setting up the solution on your user desktops and onboarding everyone, ensuring the right level of training is provided for each user. Then you're up and running!

But it doesn’t stop there – we are always on hand for any questions or amendments to your solution. We will also make recommendations about further enhancements, for example, integrating into your existing systems, which can save you further time.

6. Is it easy to use? Is any free training provided?

The CC Dr@ft platform is incredibly adaptable to different types of users. This means, regardless of role, we ensure each customer’s solution is designed to be intuitive for their types of user. In addition to this, part of the CC Dr@ft solution is onboarding and training of users, in which we ensure and monitor that everyone is comfortable using it.

7. Are there any plans to further develop the product?

We are constantly looking at how we can further develop CC Dr@ft and extend the ways in which we can optimise document-driven processes (for example, we are currently exploring additional contract lifecycle management).

8. How is CC Dr@ft priced?

Users pay an annual subscription, which includes access to their own version of CC Dr@ft which has been designed by CCAS in collaboration with them. Subscription also includes testing, implementation, onboarding and maintenance, plus dedicated customer support.

Part of our quoting process includes a return-on-investment calculation, ensuring our customers can see the real value they will realise once the solution is in place.

9. Are free trials and/or demonstrations available?

Demonstrations are available on request; please contact us.

As each CC Dr@ft solution is a bespoke creation, free trials are not available, however, you will be given extensive demos which align closely with your use case. In most cases, we can provide a proof of concept at low- to zero-cost.

The team's approach

10. What prompted you to build this solution?

Our earliest customers were also Clifford Chance clients. They told us that there was a need to work with a document automation provider that really understood their industry and that would not just provide an ‘out of the box’ solution that they then needed to figure out how to optimise.

What they wanted was a document automation team that acted as an extension of their own team, without having the overhead of the team on their business – that's what they have with CC Dr@ft.

11. What are you working on next?

CC Dr@ft is just one of the solutions that CCAS provides. Other solutions include:

• a Senior Managers & Certification Regime tool (SMCR Manager)
• a product to help legal treasury teams manage their debt listing obligations (Continuing Obligations; Debt Securities)
• a data protection product which enables users to compare data protection regulations across multiple jurisdictions (Cross-Border Publisher: Data Protection)

12. If you had to summarise as a tweet – what would be your predictions for legal technology over the next 12 months?

As soon as those who suffer from pain points in legal understand the problems they need solving, they can find a matching (often technology) solution for it. If we achieve this understanding, the opportunities are endless.

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