signing contract

Not every lesson learned at Harvard Law School takes place in a classroom. One startup, Evisort, was created by Harvard Law School students who saw the need to bring efficiency to the analysis and review of legal documents.

Originally, the students were not even planning to start a company. But they began working on Evisort's development after speaking with attorneys who told them about the inefficiencies found in the legal industry, especially as the volume of data skyrockets.

Evisort's algorithms analyze language in contracts, and can classify and categorize the content. The Harvard students realized that by using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, Evisort could help enterprises manage contracts across organizations via machine learning and AI. They used the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab) to further develop their theories.

Evisort was built in conjunction with graduate students and researchers at MIT. Among the AI techniques in use are deep learning, neural networks, as well as custom-built models. As a result, accurate data is provided much quicker, and the improved process frees up attorneys so they can provide legal judgment when reviewing documents.

Jerry Ting, Evisort's co-founder and CEO, told Legaltech News, “Our algorithms were developed by our team members, beginning with our first proof of concept nearly two years ago. Since then, we've built up a suite of algorithms aimed at tackling the different types of data within contracts, and a platform that allows users to leverage the powerful algorithms we run on their contracts.

“We've been supported by lawyers all around the country who've provided input, feedback, and even pressure-tested our platform for us, to ensure our development was of the highest caliber,” he added.

Ting said that companies “struggle to manage their legal documents. Evisort removes the need for expensive, tedious, and inaccurate human review.”

Operational data is extracted from scanned documents to help general counsel, controllers, sales professionals, and other company staff, Ting added. Among the departments which can benefit from the technology are legal, compliance, accounting and finance.

“These are highly trained, highly paid, and intelligent people who are spending their time searching for documents, copying and pasting, and scrolling—tasks that a computer could do,” Ting said. “At the same time, lawyers, especially in-house, are operating on limited resources and are stretched thin.

“So we set out to build a platform that could augment their tasks, allowing them to focus on the important, analytical, and complex issues facing them while automating the tedious repetitive tasks, like looking for provisions, dates, and specific terms,” he said.

Contract review becomes faster and more accurate through Evisort, the company added in a release. It allows for large-scale contract review processes. Companies also will have access to more data.

“With Evisort's six layers of artificial intelligence, going from the type of contract to the specific termination provision, users can mix and match what they look for across entire corpuses of data,” Ting said.

Also, it aims to cut down on inefficiency and lost revenue. “Right now, a lot of the data within contracts are dead, lost in scanned PDF documents where the only way to access the data is by manually reading the documents,” Ting said. “Data that could drive negotiations, pricing, and strategy are lost. Other data that they rely on … takes time, and key details may be missed, like in the M&A due diligence process. Billions of dollars of revenue are lost because of missed renewals and upsell opportunities for sales teams, data that could be easily accessed and processes that could be easily automated using Evisort's powerful AI modules.”

Currently, the Evisort platform is in the market and is in active use by clients. According to the company, it has already been tested on over a million contracts for accuracy and scalability.

Moreover, Evisort provides a range of consulting services, such as on document organization, creating a competitive business advantage through AI, moving to the cloud, and offering customized training programs. “Lawyers across every company are struggling to find a way to manage their contracts, and we're excited to be tackling the problem during such an exciting time,” Ting said.