Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, the regulators aren't really being sold in the first place. They don't have the resources or willingness to stir up a hornet's nest if they can get away with it. Normally the key battle is in determining if the work in question falls within the definition of the practice of law. The more rote and mindless the work is (say, bates numbering a discovery compilation), the safer it is, but most of the lo…
Can you expand on the document classification etc - one would have thought that a large company would have all its contracts in one place / data room. For things like discovery etc I can see searching a gazillion emails is classification territory, but as you said that is mostly a done market? I am just wondering where this next wave really is going going
At scale, almost no one has a "room." Think about a mortgage bank or cell phone provider, or a car insurance company. Even if they tried to use 'a form', they have to manage hundreds of little details about millions of clients -- based on whatever version of the form was filled out, where they lived, where the product is used, has a deed or title been properly recorded, did the Supreme Court of State X strike down part of your agreement, has anyone sent a written complaint sufficient to trigger the Fair Credit Reporting Act, etc. We've all criticized big lenders who can't come up with proof at a hearing -- but that's because managing that much data is hard. Compliance/contract management software is still growing rapidly.
Second, another wave of tech for lawyers is taking huge databases of publicly-filed contracts, and suggesting clauses in agreements similar to yours. If 80% of compensation contracts filed by publicly traded companies say X, and your deal says Y, you'd like to know that.