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Understand contracts before you sign them

lawgeex.com

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Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#71

Post by Balgair »

joshuaheard wrote: post #66
Balgair wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it as a first pass. Yes, you'll have to go over it again anyways, but the 'flags' it pulls out give a little bit of landmarks and a tiny bit of extra awareness that you may have missed. It's probably going to have a error rate much higher than yours, but it's errors have a chance of being not yours and it may catch things you missed. The real question is how much better of a lawyer does it make you? Can it s…

If this service is for lawyers, then it could have value. However, most lawyers pass their time costs onto their clients, so they have no incentive to be efficient. I would aim at corporate lawyers, although it's a very small market.

I can then see the aim to the mass market. It is something that in the very least gives you confidence in the contract in some small way. If the software gives it a pass, you can then sorta assume it is somewhat legit. However, if it gives a pass with conditions, you can then have something to push back on the other party for. It'll give people some confidence to argue their own rights, even if it is terribly misplaced and wrongheaded, it might get people to read their contracts.

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#72

Post by hackuser »

snowwrestler wrote: post #63
chermanowicz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, at what point in time did you (everyone on HN) learn about contracts? Did your father or teacher sit you down one day and say "here's this piece of paper that is legally binding and here's how to understand it and here's everything you need to know about contract law and your legal obligations, etc.?" It seems like something that is never taught yet is an ever present part of our lives. It also seems lik…

There are three levels to understanding contracts. 1) The language itself. Contracts are written in English (at least in the U.S.), so anyone with a strong understanding of English can read one top to bottom and comprehend what it is saying. Experience in analyzing writing (like from a few college English courses) can help a lot, both in learning to quickly parse sentences, and in learning to infer motivations from t…

Also essential:

4) What is enforceable? What contractual violations will either party invest in enforcing? Enforcement may require too much time or money (e.g., it's not worth suing over $1,000), or it may disrupt valuable relationships (e.g., if the contract is with a customer who accounts for 50% of sales, you are unlikely to sue them).

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#73

Post by Lawtonfogle »

_acme wrote: post #57
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge numbers? If I ever met anyone who said they read the full license for all software they use, I would call them a liar.

Re-read what you replied to.

I was alluding to 'huge numbers' being an understatement.

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#74

Post by Lawtonfogle »

snowwrestler wrote: post #63
chermanowicz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, at what point in time did you (everyone on HN) learn about contracts? Did your father or teacher sit you down one day and say "here's this piece of paper that is legally binding and here's how to understand it and here's everything you need to know about contract law and your legal obligations, etc.?" It seems like something that is never taught yet is an ever present part of our lives. It also seems lik…

There are three levels to understanding contracts. 1) The language itself. Contracts are written in English (at least in the U.S.), so anyone with a strong understanding of English can read one top to bottom and comprehend what it is saying. Experience in analyzing writing (like from a few college English courses) can help a lot, both in learning to quickly parse sentences, and in learning to infer motivations from t…

Your first point may be better if broken into two. While a contract is written in English, you need a legal specific understanding, not merely a strong understanding of English. For example, consider affirming something.

If I affirm a statement, it is generally understood to be me agreeing with/supporting the statement. But if I affirm an appeal, I am supporting the original ruling that was appealed, which is in a very basic sense the opposite of what affirming an appeal would be seen as to most people using the English definition.

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#75

Post by lawgeex »

jmuhlich wrote: post #40

I think a sample report (from a fictitious but plausible contract) would be helpful to clearly explain what the service does.

Thank you for the idea. We were thinking of adding a short video or screenshots when we release the updated Beta version of LawGeex

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#76

Post by will_brown »

Chevalier wrote: post #67
joshuaheard wrote: post #60

As a lawyer, I am always excited to see innovation in the legal space. This seems like an interesting concept: using an algorithm to summarize a document (contract) and to flag unusual clauses. Put the document in, and out comes the legal blessing. However, I am a little concerned about the viability of this concept in terms of producing a valuable analysis. A true analysis considers the context of a document. For in…

Fellow JD here. I have to disagree with you re: viability. Not only does most of our work lend itself well to automation (discovery, researching precedent, and predicting case outcomes), but this particular startup is aimed squarely at the most obvious domain where humans mostly aren't needed anymore: formulating contracts. Translating boilerplate legalese into natural language and running both parties through checkl…

>I can't recall the last time anyone I know hired a lawyer to sign a rental agreement

I know the OP was talking about residential leases; however, in the span of ~3 years I would say I have been retained ~100 times to review/negotiate/revise commercial lease (rental) agreements.

The real value would be comparing the results of LawGeex with a lawyer's legal opinion for the same contract. Even then, it is easy enough to say one could compare 2 attorney legal opinions of a contract and have drastically different opinions, or that while a LawGeex contract review may be identical to an attorney on one contract, it may not on another.

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#77

Post by lawgeex »

jmuguy wrote: post #42

I had you analyze the monster 37 page lease I just signed for a new apartment. It looked mostly boilerplate to me with several addendums attached. I'm not sure your engine was able to process the PDF, it just sort of spit back a page of "issues" that were garbled text and weird characters. I can't seem to get back to the page I was on now either.

Hi Thank you for trying to upload your monster 37 page lease :) I apologise that LawGeex didn't work. So that we can figure out why it didn't work, I would really appreciate if you can email PDF to contactlg@lawgeex.com so that our tech team can take a look at it. Many thanks

Re: Understand contracts before you sign them

#79

Post by knodi123 »

jamesk_au wrote: post #46
mootothemax wrote: post #19

I'm always shocked by the number of people who don't read the contracts they sign. It's one thing if you have hundreds of pages of legalese in front of you - I can see the value of a service such as this, or hiring your own lawyer for such cases - but for a few pages, five minutes of your time max, I just don't understand why so many people don't take the time to do so. One habit I've noticed in highly successful peo…

In Australia, we have some beneficial consumer laws (eg prohibiting misleading conduct in trade or commerce), and I have heard of some people deliberately not reading contracts so that they can rely on favourable oral representations made to them by the other party, which could be a big business representative or (more commonly) a shop assistant or clerk. The idea is that it doesn't matter whether the contract (often…

That would be fantastic. I've recently signed a complicated contract (which I read, but which I don't fully understand, and it's in an area I know is rife with hidden gotchas), and while my employer gave me a very explicit and unambiguous explanation of how wonderful it is for me (and yes, I recorded the call), I would love the confidence of knowing the law would defend me if he was lying.
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