|
| otoburb wrote:
| This is great! I too have wondered why contracts can't be in
| plain text since the versioning and back-and-forth between legal
| and business teams could be handled so much more easily than Word
| revisions (or worse, PDF comments).
|
| You might also want to connect with 'kemitchell[1], also a former
| software developer who became an attorney. He recently launched a
| similar initiative to generate license terms for selling
| software[2]; essentially another initiative towards easier
| contract automation & management.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kemitchell
|
| [2] https://writing.kemitchell.com/2022/01/22/Fast-
| Path-1.0.0.ht...
| andi999 wrote:
| So where is the proof that all parties signed located? On your
| servers? So do I rely on your company still offering the service
| if there is a contract dispute 5 years down the line, or how do
| you proof in court that the contract was signed?
|
| Second question: would you sign ndas since a lot of contracts are
| confidential?
| hkhanna wrote:
| The proof is in a couple of places, although I will point out
| that all conventional electronic signature services suffer from
| similar issues.
|
| First, yes, it's on our servers. But crucially, all parties
| also receive a copy of the fully executed contract via email
| once it's signed. So even if Magistrate were to someday
| disappear, the timestamped email in your inbox serves as
| evidence of the contract -- assuming your email provider
| doesn't go out of business as well.
|
| There may be other ways of dealing with the "are you in
| business in 5 years" problem that we plan to explore as well.
| otoburb wrote:
| The same set of questions can be applied to DocuSign or other
| centralized e-signature services. The answer to most of those
| questions would likely be "yes", but more importantly that
| doesn't seem to stop the viability of this type of service.
|
| If plaintext contract acceptance grows then one hopes that the
| middleman could be cut out and we could eventually see adoption
| of standard developer versioning tools adopted by in-house
| legal/IT teams to wrangle the plaintext contracts.
|
| Other than plaintext contract tooling (which I know is a heavy
| lift), this workflow would then be no different than the
| current practice of emailing marked-up Word documents to each
| other directly until the clean copy is ready for execution.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > how do you proof in court that the contract was signed?
|
| Probably much the same way you "prove" anything: you present
| your evidence to the court (such as a signed PDF copy, or
| evidence that the parties acted as if the agreement were
| signed, etc) and you swear to it under oath. Of course, the
| other party could do the same to allege that the contract was
| never signed. But lying to the court can have pretty severe
| consequences if you are caught, so in a civil case there are
| generally strong incentives not to do it.
| [deleted]
| awinter-py wrote:
| standard text format for legal pleadings feels like it has more
| of a value prop
|
| - for litigants, standardizes the production of documents
|
| - for legal researchers, makes it easier to discover / extract
| what they need (vs current PDF workflow)
|
| - for hosting tools like PACER, makes it easier to index
| references and preview docs. for courts who have to accept
| e-file, lets them do more auto linting / checking on filings
|
| - for people in the judge's office, makes it possible to build
| summarization tools that simplify reading memos etc
| webmobdev wrote:
| This is a neat idea. So is there a repository where the contract
| is stored, and does every one have read access to it? Does a
| version control track changes? I do feel you'd have more success
| with a web app or desktop app.
| hkhanna wrote:
| Great ideas. This is pretty bare bones at this point. Only one
| person can create the contract and send it for signature.
| Planned development includes negotiation of contracts using
| version control.
| thruflo wrote:
| This is really really good. If you can build a collaboration
| ecosystem around this a kind of GitHub meets Seedlegals then you
| can create a huge amount of value and disrupt an industry.
|
| Where do I invest?
| hkhanna wrote:
| If you're serious, reach out to me at the email in my profile.
| mushufasa wrote:
| I have found it impractical to get lawyers to use anything other
| than Microsoft Word even when there are clear benefits (like
| online collaboration and shared version history). The reason they
| give is that they don't want a shared history (need to be able to
| clean document history for sending to external stakeholders) and
| that they know the other side will be using Microsoft Word
| anyways. So it's an equilibrium because they know the other side
| will use Microsoft word so then they have to use Microsoft Word.
|
| I have forced our lawyers to use better technologies but then we
| end up with Microsoft word documents from opposing counsel. So
| back to Word it is.
|
| There's a gravitational pull that is not worth us spending any %
| of a $1000/hr bill on; this is a scenario where doing anything
| different where they have to be trained is costlier than keeping
| the status quo, where that is a MSFT Word license the fraction of
| the cost of a billable hour.
| lemax wrote:
| The domination of Word over contract negotiations seems crazy
| from my engineer's point of view. Just to get a contract
| through with a few changes, we go through Word diffs, manual
| review, and these crazy confusing to parse tracked changes. And
| then when everything is said and done, the lawyers produce a
| "final PDF" and we have to run another comparison in Acrobat.
|
| It's always seemed to me that git is the answer, but yeah,
| you'd need to prevail over the serious network effects of Word,
| deal with formatting (provision numbering, definitions, etc),
| and provide ways for lawyers to ignore the history or start
| from a clean "accept everything" slate at any phase of the
| negotiation. Not to mention all the back and forth happening
| over email in between drafts that can sometimes be valuable or
| even legally useful later on.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I think it's a matter of perspective. I don't think lawyers
| would typically view Word or ChangePro as being difficult to
| use - certainly, trying to get them to learn git would be a
| significantly greater effort. Outside of tech circles, I
| think that is true of clients as well.
|
| The main problem I run into is people using conflicting diff
| software (eg, you generate a blackline of two Word documents
| using ChangePro, but you forget to PDF it before it goes to
| the other side, so they put through some changes on the
| blackline document in Word tracked changes). These things can
| be avoided through sane configuration options. Maybe git is
| an objectively better solution but even if it is there is a
| huge local maximum problem.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| >The domination of Word over contract negotiations seems
| crazy from my engineer's point of view.
|
| Lawyer here: because your engineer's POV is wrong. I don't
| know what else to say. It comes from a lack of knowledge of
| how lawyers actually work and therefore what we actually need
| for our work. It is not identical to what software engineers
| need or want for theirs.
|
| The drafting process is the area in transactional practice
| that least needs "disruption". The process is long-settled
| and fairly universal. Track changes are not "crazy confusing
| to parse", they're a simple and easy way to know who edited
| what and when. Version control? Basically meaningless for
| lawyers. The only version of the contract that matters is the
| most recent one, so we just need a way to track that. In
| actual practice we don't just revert back to some older
| version; that doesn't even make sense to someone who
| understands what we're doing.
|
| What really needs disruption, or at least improvement, are
| contract management platforms. I've worked with all the major
| ones and they're all pretty bad and clunky in their own way
| (IME Ironclad is the least-worst but still leaves much to be
| desired).
|
| If someone could develop a simple, intuitive system for
| extracting and recording certain agreement content and making
| that searchable (and transferable!), as well as storing and
| searching agreement documents generally, it would be amazing.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _The only version of the contract that matters is the
| most recent one, so we just need a way to track that._
|
| Another lawyer here: This is correct. (To uniquely identify
| the most recent version, it's extremely helpful to _hard-
| code_ the date and time into the file name and in a running
| header. EXAMPLE: "ABC-XYZ-NDA-
| markup-2022-01-31-1510-CST.docx" (or use UTC if dealing
| with other countries' time zones).
| Aeolun wrote:
| The moment you start doing this, git becomes the better
| solution, no?
|
| If multiple parties are mailing word documents back and
| forth (even with date in title), it becomes crazy.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _The moment you start doing this, git becomes the
| better solution, no?_
|
| You think J. Random Lawyer is going to learn, and use,
| git? ROFLMAO -- half the lawyers around don't even know
| how to use styles in Word, and they think the way to add
| spacing between paragraphs is to leave a blank line.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| Nah, we do the same thing the parent does with file
| names. Works just fine.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > The only version of the contract that matters is the most
| recent one, so we just need a way to track that. In actual
| practice we don't just revert back to some older version;
| that doesn't even make sense to someone who understands
| what we're doing.
|
| so every lawyer on earth is able to use word 100% of the
| time without ever losing data, removing a sentence or
| closing a comment by mistake ?
| LiquidSky wrote:
| A glib response to a glib question: frankly, yes.
|
| This is not an actual problem in real-world practice.
| Change tracking is easy and fairly universally
| understood. I see this idea from engineers that what
| lawyers do is try to slide in secret edits and a lawyer's
| job is to be ever-vigilant for these secret attacks, but
| this is not how lawyers actually work.
|
| Only non-lawyers imagine this is some huge issue that
| lawyers grapple with and for which they cry out for a
| solution. Again, it really would behoove any would-be
| saviors of the legal profession to engage with actual
| practitioners and listen to what their actual problems
| are, not what you strongly feel they must be.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > A glib response to a glib question: frankly, yes.
|
| that's wild. My experience editing word documents is that
| you have to have a dozen backups to be sure not to loose
| something due to basic keyboard / mouse manipulation
| mistake. I wonder what is their secret.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| Try updating your version of Word, it sounds like you're
| having some rather severe technical issues.
| jcelerier wrote:
| It's not a problem with word, it's a problem with
| anything that allows keyboard input. There's not a week
| where I don't see a mistakenly removed line for instance
| when checking a diff before commiting.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > Again, it really would behoove any would-be saviors of
| the legal profession to engage with actual practitioners
| and listen to what their actual problems are
|
| That may be a good idea, but not because they'll tell you
| what their problems are. Asking people what their problem
| is leads to responses like 'faster horses' instead of
| 'cars', and this whole Word situation reeks strongly of
| that.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| That's funny, to me it reeks strongly of solutions in
| search of a problem.
| afarrell wrote:
| I'm going to name the phenomenon you're arguing against
| "UX projection".
|
| As a software engineer, when I imagine myself doing a
| lawyer's job, I would want a tool like this. But that
| misses the point. Good UX requires first being attentive
| to the actual problems expressed by users. Otherwise we
| end up with the pretense of empathy: projection.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > Version control? Basically meaningless for lawyers. The
| only version of the contract that matters is the most
| recent one, so we just need a way to track that.
|
| I think you are talking about versioning executed
| contracts, in which case I kind of agree with you, though
| there are some corner cases where it would be helpful to
| track all the amendments/restatements to a contract over
| time.
|
| But I do think versioning of _drafts_ is important in all
| but the most basic negotiations because parties expect
| redlines with each draft and different parties may expect
| different redlines (because not all parties are necessarily
| recipients of all drafts, eg, if there are some discrete
| points being negotiated amongst a sub-set of the parties).
|
| But as I have said in another comment, that kind of version
| control is already available to lawyers. And in general, I
| agree with you - the actual pain points for lawyers (and
| their clients) are not the ones that software developers
| tend to focus on when they talk about disrupting the legal
| sector. There are a lot of solutions in search of problems.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| All you need is the political clout to get a court system or
| some big agency with quasi-judicial functions or a big city
| to adopt.
|
| It's definitely possible. Adobe is a great example of a
| success story in the space.
|
| Problem is that for plaintext, you need a benevolent
| billionaire to fund the lobbying.
| hkhanna wrote:
| I have felt this exact pain. I think I know the path to
| overcoming Microsoft Word in the legal world.
|
| It will be a long road, but it will happen sooner or later. I
| think we can make it happen sooner.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| I think conversion between docx and plaintext is a possible
| solution, contracts aren't known for fancy formatting
| sjy wrote:
| Outline numbering, cross-references and tables are all common
| features of contracts which are difficult to capture in plain
| text.
| iav wrote:
| Also legal entity diagrams, picture appendices, and often
| math formulas with Unicode
| eganist wrote:
| I appreciate the concept here, but I have to ask: do you have a
| security page for this that documents the controls in place?
|
| I get that that's probably not a priority for a startup, but the
| risk in someone relying on this for contract-work getting burned
| by someone exploiting your platform is pretty great (i.e
| potentially unbounded downside), especially if the
| detection/response processes don't catch or can't properly
| identify the adversary.
|
| I'm trying to account for the scenario where an adversary
| exploits a flaw that allows them to sign a contract on behalf of
| a client of the service at a time when audit trails aren't
| thorough enough for the client to repudiate a false signature.
| Nouser76 wrote:
| This is interesting! I'm going to throw a few questions your way,
| please feel free to answer as many or few as you'd like. A lot of
| these are stream of thought things too, so apologies.
|
| Do you see this product serving the lawyer-lawyer use case,
| lawyer-individual use case, or to an individual-individual
| market?[0] As an individual, I feel like there may be a lot of
| friction in drafting and sending a contract for another
| individual to sign. The chain of custody/assurance of no editing
| is one aspect that would drive me to do this process through a
| lawyer (or any other document signing company, but I don't have
| any experience with them).
|
| Can I request/propose changes to a document sent to me? Or is
| this more for final drafts to be sent for final signing? Being
| plain text, I imagine diffing could be very straightforward.
|
| It seems to me there's an assumption that email access is enough
| to validate you are the person this is intended for. I wouldn't
| be surprised if other online offerings like this had similar
| assumptions, but I'm not sure if I agree with the premise. I
| would imagine an entity sending a contract could include a PGP
| key, and you signing it could also sign the message, but a lot of
| this seems like a post-signing check, not a pre-req to sign.
|
| I like that there is a style manual that formats the draft. I
| know it exists as a guideline for non-digital uses too, but
| conforming to a standard in the digital representation should
| make sharing and templating more standardized. Not a question,
| just something that excites me as not-legal-expert person.
|
| Do you think making a plugin for Microsoft Word that calls your
| website would be a middle-ground for moving people into your
| service?
|
| I like how you mention IDEs as well. I truly do not know the
| current flow for making a contract, and assume it is that there
| are templates that you change to match the specific situation.
| Completing templates in a guided manner seems like it could be a
| big deal, especially if there are sub-templates for each
| variation that a section would have.
|
| Overall, I'm excited. I think the legal system has a lot of pain
| points for lawyers and individuals alike. Some of those can't be
| fixed, but tech can definitely solve some, and I think this is
| one of the problems tech CAN help with.
|
| [0] Lawyer in this case can also mean a business' or other
| entity's legal counsel.
| jaza wrote:
| This is a great first step towards better online signing of
| contracts. I agree with what the FAQ says: "I've always thought
| that the fake cursive signatures that most electronic signature
| platforms make you use when e-signing a contract are silly".
| Quite true. Drawing a cursive signature online is like dancing a
| waltz in a nightclub. Signing via a simple action like a click /
| tap / keystroke should be fine.
|
| But I'd expect a tool like this to have mathematically verifiable
| signatures, for example by using GPG keys, or perhaps by using
| blockchain. Ideally, the signatures would also be calculated
| based on a hash of the body of the contract. That would be a real
| game-changer, it would allow you to prove that a given party
| signed a given exact version of a contract. Magistrate doesn't
| appear to have anything like that right now, the signature is
| literally just the text "/s/ Jane Smith". Unless I'm missing
| something?
| hkhanna wrote:
| You're exactly right. The signature reflecting some sort of
| hash of the fully executed document is on the roadmap. There
| are some nuances around what exactly is fed into the hash. And,
| there are lots of other great ideas in these comments and
| outside of them that would make this product better.
|
| I'm going to spend some time reflecting on all of these
| comments and being deliberate about about what to develop next.
| Then I'll build it quickly. If you want to know when something
| comes up, submit your email for updates.
|
| I won't spam you. You'll get emails from me personally and only
| when there's something interesting to tell you.
| droidno9 wrote:
| Interesting product. Congrats on shipping!
|
| I'm wondering about the use case of developers actually wanting
| to send out contracts (on behalf of their employer, I assume). Is
| this something that your clients who are software developers are
| asking for?
|
| Disclosure: I'm a lawyer and software developer.
|
| Edit: Correct a brain fart.
| OJFord wrote:
| > Disclaimer: I'm a lawyer and software developer.
|
| I'm surprised to see that common misuse (that I'd usually try
| harder to refrain commenting on) from a lawyer!
| dewey wrote:
| This is usually used as a "I'm speaking from this context"
| instead of a "legal" disclaimer.
| OJFord wrote:
| Right, but that is absolutely a misuse, since if anything
| it's the opposite that's meant, it's a 'claimer' - I claim
| relevant experience or context through being a lawyer and
| SE.
|
| Again not just boring and nit-picking on something so
| common where I know what's meant; I was just surprised that
| a lawyer (i.e. someone so familiar with it) would make that
| error. (Or use it with that (proscribed) meaning, if you
| prefer.)
| droidno9 wrote:
| You're right. Should've been "disclosure" instead.
|
| This is one of the reasons why lawyers use templates, as
| a defense against brain farts where we write "disclaimer"
| instead of "disclosure."
| droidno9 wrote:
| Indeed!
| hkhanna wrote:
| That's right! They often want to integrate with existing
| processes or products (often Salesforce) to automatically send
| contracts out for signatures on behalf of the company.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Very nice concept! Bookmarked, wish you the best with this.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| I see.
|
| Have a look at script-writing software and its auto-formatting.
| Some are actually open-source and could very well wipe the floor
| with some bloated, overpriced alternatives.
|
| The scriptwriting community is incredibly anal about format so I
| think you could benefit from having a look at some of these
| pieces of software. Things like templates can be molded from
| community standards.
|
| _Kit-scenarist_ is particularly good but that 's my bias as a
| loyal user for many years. And yes, I write screenplays ever so
| often.
| programmarchy wrote:
| I've used eSignatures.io in the past, which uses Markdown for
| contracts, and found it to be exponentially easier to use than
| DocuSign, so I appreciate simpler solutions coming into the
| space.
|
| There's a couple reasons why I wouldn't switch to Magistrate at
| this point:
|
| 1. eSignatures allows templating. Sometimes tacking on parties at
| the end isn't enough, because things like products or payment
| terms need to be parameterized inline.
|
| 2. Webhooks that allow taking actions when the contract is either
| rejected or signed by all parties. It's also nice to be able to
| attach some metadata to the contract e.g. (a purchase order #) so
| it comes back in the payload with the web hook.
|
| These may be use cases you don't want to cover yet, but thought
| I'd list some features I've been relying on as a developer
| building solutions in this space.
| hkhanna wrote:
| This is great. Thank you for letting me know about them!
|
| Both of your ideas are on the very near-term feature list.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I have to say, I've wanted someone to do this for years. Amazing
| to see it coming about. Imagine if it were possible to describe
| more and more things the way Creative Commons does?
| jll29 wrote:
| I used to be Director of Research at "one company that makes some
| of the leading legal information access products".
|
| You won't likely divorce lawyers from their beloved Word anytime
| soon. But your approach of plain text API is not what I would
| call a "solution" but a mere building block that may be used in a
| future solution. Law firms and sole practitioners will prefer
| something already finished, an end product. So I would call what
| you called "MVP" an "advanced feature", whereas your basic
| solution is still not there until it has a GUI (which may have to
| look like Word?).
|
| I personally love plain text, but legal documents have structure
| that ought to be dealt with in a solution for the future. The
| question is how to do that, and layout/formatting - while good
| for rendering - is not good for representing that structure.
|
| It's good that you are working on innovating in this space; I
| would encourage you to talk to customers and to learn about the
| products in this space [5,6]. Some must-have features like
| templating have already been mentioned here.
|
| [1] https://mena.thomsonreuters.com/en/products-
| services/legal/c...
|
| [2] https://www.trustradius.com/contract-management
| olah_1 wrote:
| It would be awesome if you used a templating system for the
| writing process. Then the writers can have templates and just
| change who ${partyA} is.
| hkhanna wrote:
| That's planned. And it will go further than existing templates
| where it's just fill in the blank.
|
| An idea I had a couple jobs ago -- which I intend to develop
| now -- is the ability to encode logic into the templates so
| that the template can be used in all sorts of business
| situations.
| broses wrote:
| It's probably a good idea to implement this with an existing
| language so that you don't end up making your own programming
| language. For example you could just make the whole document
| a JavaScript template string.
| harryvederci wrote:
| Looks awesome! Greetings from another IT-savvy Harry with a law
| degree :)
| srameshc wrote:
| Congrats !! idea is great. I always fret dealing with clients
| when it comes to legal stuff as I don't charge that much to
| afford a lawyer. This could be a very helpful tool for small
| indie developers like me or even the more established ones, who I
| have seen fight over petty stuff with clients. It would be
| helpful if one can see few examples or templates. Also for
| someone who does less than 2 contracts a month, is there a
| possibility that for extra free , there could be some custom
| template depending on the situation ?
| droidno9 wrote:
| From the look of it this product is just an API to distribute
| the contract you already have and collect esignatures--kinda
| like Docusign, but with text.
| codegeek wrote:
| As a Tech founder of a B2B SAAS where we do contracts, I would
| love to try this!! You are on to something here if you can get
| this executed well.
| [deleted]
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| I couldnt tell what country and thus legal system this was aimed
| at, so I've assumed this is geared for the US and not European
| countries and spent like 20seconds on it before coming back to
| make this comment.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| In the FAQs halfway down the page:
|
| > Is this legally binding? Yes, if you are in the United
| States. The Electronic Signatures in Global and National
| Commerce Act (ESIGN) together with the broad adoption of the
| Uniform Electronic Transaction Act (UETA) by 47 states ensures
| the validity of electronic signatures.
|
| > If you are outside the United States, this product is not for
| you (yet).
| [deleted]
| omarhaneef wrote:
| Is there a legal way to demonstrate the legally binding aspect?
|
| I mean could you, for example, sign a document with your friend,
| have them purposefully violate it, and then take them to court to
| prove that the courts will back up the document?
|
| I am asking because the existing digital signature solutions have
| the benefit of having proved that they are accepted in court.
| coyotespike wrote:
| Check out the FAQ there, helpfully answers these questions.
| tl;dr yes these are legally valid digital signatures.
|
| (former lawyer here and didn't know the answers either!)
| omarhaneef wrote:
| Yes, before I wrote my comment, I saw in the FAQ that legal
| signatures are valid in the US.
|
| However, I am asking is this particular way of signing
| considered a valid digital signature in the legal sense. I
| could get a technical response, but how much more powerful
| would it be to demonstrate that it already has?
|
| As an individual I _might_ risk a project on an unknown
| signature provider, but I can 't imagine saving the money on
| a "proven" signature.
| woah wrote:
| I think you misunderstand the concept of a signature. What
| matters is that you agreed to something. The signature is
| just evidence of this agreement.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| I accept that I misunderstood the concept, but then you
| don't need the "signature" at all? Just an email saying
| "yeah, sounds good. We agree to this." Can we just test
| that in court?
|
| I say this only because I can see -- IAMAL -- that there
| are many ways around this. "Yes, but we subsequently
| changed the deal when I emailed you and said 'we have to
| delay it," and then you said 'that's terrible. ok.'" etc
| Aeolun wrote:
| Yes, now my name is in a plaintext file.
|
| How do you prove it was _me_ that added my name?
|
| With a physical signature you can theoretically compare
| it to previous signatures using pressure analysis etc,
| but that's not a thing for a text string.
| woah wrote:
| Again, it's a matter of evidence. I guess the court would
| have to get to the truth of the matter, and when they
| did, the side that was lying would go to jail. IANAL but
| I'm guessing signature forgery disputes are a very small
| portion of all corporate lawsuits.
| mbesto wrote:
| IANAL...
|
| > Is there a legal way to demonstrate the legally binding
| aspect?
|
| I wasn't actually aware that a signature is required for
| something to be legally binding. I thought all contracts are
| "legally binding" as long as one party agrees to provide
| something in exchange to another party. If I send an email that
| says "confirmed, let's move ahead" then this should be as good
| as a signature, no? AFAIK, someone's signature is basically
| just an affirmation for a court to say "do you solemnly swear
| this is your signature?".
|
| I could be wrong.
| jll29 wrote:
| IANAL but:
|
| That entirely depends on the jurisdiction.
|
| Legal software generally isn't portable across countries due
| to subtleties like this.
|
| There are jurisdictions that do not accept any electronic
| signatures whereas in others an email response saying "go
| ahead" or even a verbal agreement on the phone (which leaves
| no permanent record) counts as "the parties have contracted".
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Have you developed a standardised format for expressing a legal
| contract as plain text (including clause numbers, definitions,
| etc)? The example I see on your Docs page doesn't include any
| clause numbering, and says:
|
| > It's a plain text file so there is no formatting. You can add
| extra spaces or tabs if you would like and they will appear in
| the final contract.
|
| So I guess it's up to each drafting lawyer to come up with their
| own formatting conventions. I think that is potentially a recipe
| for disaster, unless the intention is that the plain text
| contract will only ever be edited by way of an interface that
| enforces standardised formatting conventions (which seems like it
| defeats the purpose).
|
| Don't get me wrong, the current process of lawyers marking up
| each other's Word documents is a pain, but at least with Word
| when you go to enter a new clause it will by default have the
| same formatting and styling as all the other clauses. Maybe I'm
| missing the use case though.
|
| Also, just to mention, version control and e-signatures are
| already available to transactional lawyers, though the solutions
| are imperfect and I guess they aren't available to everyone (I
| presume the software is expensive).
|
| I don't mean to be critical or unduly sceptical by the way. I
| personally would love a move to simple, text-based processes for
| drafting and negotiating documents. But my own experience tells
| me that non-technically-inclined lawyers and clients would be
| slow to adopt a solution like this.
| hkhanna wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. I agree there's a lot that remains to
| be done on formatting, etc. This is, after all, just an MVP.
|
| One of the directions I may take this is to allow those things
| you mention like clause numbers and definitions to be
| specified, perhaps by some markdown flavor. As you can see, we
| already enforce one formatting convention: the signature block.
|
| As this is developed, we may enforce other conventions. The
| Manual of Style of Contract Drafting (4th Ed.) [0] would
| generally serve as inspiration for me to the extent we enforce
| any formatting conventions.
|
| [0] https://www.adamsdrafting.com/writing/mscd/
| dylan604 wrote:
| what a fine line that would be to walk. to add all of these
| formatting abilities, you move further and further away from
| plain text. at some point, you've recreated the same issues
| as Word.
| hkhanna wrote:
| 100%. I think about this balance constantly.
| danuker wrote:
| Indeed. I argue LaTeX is unreadable for a non-techie.
|
| Maybe Markdown or reStructuredText would provide a starting
| point. But it would have to have a WYSIWYG editor.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| You can look into YAML frontmatter for the things like clause
| numbers and definitions if you go the markdown path.
| phphphphp wrote:
| I'd suggest you prioritise defining a format earlier rather
| than later. The format / standard can evolve over time to
| accommodate the evolution of your product (that backwards-
| compatible evolution can be defined as part of the first
| version) but to go from no standard to any standard is much
| more difficult once people are already using the platform:
| you'll either break established workflows, or burden yourself
| with a lifetime of supporting unbounded backwards
| compatibility (because every client will, by virtue of
| writing integration code, unintentionally define their own
| standard).
| z3c0 wrote:
| This is great - I really hope to see this take hold. I work for a
| key player in the legal software space, and easily-parsed
| contracts would be a game-changer for us. Especially in regards
| to billing reconciliation between two firms, where there can be a
| lot of back-and-forth over contract terms. Being able to easily
| parse and present the terms of a contract could change this
| forever.
|
| I noticed that it seems to be limited to 50 contracts per month
| currently. Are there plans for larger tiers?
| hkhanna wrote:
| There are! I just had no idea how positive the reception would
| be. If you're interested in a higher tier, just reach out to
| the email in my profile and we'll set something up.
| twomoonsbysurf wrote:
| Super cool. I want to see more legal tools for developers to
| improve workflow efficiency. As a developer I'm especially
| interested in finding free contracts I can use to create
| agreements with other developers to work on mutually-owned
| products/businesses together.
|
| Also, I like the pricing page-- especially this approach: "Keep
| this low, early adopter price as new features are added." -- I'll
| keep this in mind for my own products, I think customers will
| appreciate being grandfathered in to low prices-- it's a win-win.
|
| To the developer-- Do you have any advice for the following
| scenario: You invite another developer to work on your product,
| such as Magistrate. How do you go about ensuring legal compliance
| with that developer--
|
| A. That they make the appropriate work contributions to obtain
| the agreed upon equity level. I.e. you worked 1600 hours on the
| product this year, they worked 400 hours. You've both logged
| these hours. In terms of the work, you offer 25% equity, but
| that's if they also put in the same amount of money you've put in
| (such as for various IT, marketing, administrative costs), as an
| example of: You retaining 75% equity and giving 25% equity to a
| partner.
|
| B. That they respect IP protections of the product (i.e. they
| don't immediately go off and try to build a competitor)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-31 23:00 UTC) |