Litera Microsystems, the business enterprise formed from a merger between Litera, Microsystems and The Sackett Group last year, this week released its first product as a unified company.

Clause Companion, the company's new product, is an automated Microsoft Word-based tool that allows attorneys to store and retrieve contract clauses within their document workflow. It allows contract drafters to pull pre-designated clauses, definitions and other language directly into the document window without disturbing existing formatting.

Following a $100 million equity investment from K1 Investments, Litera Microsystems formed from its three constituent companies as a means to expand its reach across the document drafting lifecycle. Litera Microsystems CEO Avaneesh Marwaha previously told LTN of the merger, “When we look at legal technology with other vendors, we all create software that works well on its own, but very rarely works well with each other.”

Microsystems previously launched an automated proofreading tool called Contract Companion, back in 2016.

The recent release of Clause Companion is the first in a series of iterations Marwaha wants to see for the tool. The next phase of the product intends to create capabilities for attorneys and clients to collaborate on agreed upon language. Ultimately, Marwaha hopes to see Clause Companion integrate with commonly referenced data sources like LexisNexis and iManage.

“The thing that we're really excited about is that Clause Companion can become a presentation layer of data,” Marwaha said.

The new release hits close to home for Marwaha, who remembers the frustrations of toggling between legal research sources, previously drafted content, and new documents during his days as a practicing attorney. If he needed to refer back to regularly used language, he said, “I had to go look for it. I should've just had that saved and defined in Word.”

If other vendors sign on board, Marwaha envisions Clause Companion as a way to connect regular legal reference points to Microsoft Word, where attorneys do most of their work. “We built the road map for it with a view of, this can be the presentation layer of any system a firm might be using. Let's make sure we build this agnostic to any other tie-ins [attorneys] may be using,” Marwaha explained. “Let's make that data visible to you in the same workflow so your more likely to use it.”