In many ways, Promise Legal shares its clients’ startup mentality: hungry to add value, obsessed with refining and improving their offerings at every turn. That ethos, along with Promise’s vision for a truly forward thinking law firm, prompts the company to proactively seek out and implement new technologies. That means more than just adopting the usual professional services tech stack, such as e-signature software and billing tools. Rather, Promise Legal’s creators are passionate about bringing technical solutions into the very heart of legal work.
Currently, the firm’s suite of legal automations can review contracts, draft governance documents, deliver subject-matter research, and spit out at least preliminary versions of complex contracts – doing the work that traditionally one or two full-time associates would handle (before the more highly paid partner swept in to review). And new tools are constantly under development. Some come from third-party providers. Where possible, they’re developed internally by the company’s founder, a programmer and self-described “tech-nerd-slash-lawyer”. Internally managed tools offer better quality control, but also greater cybersecurity – fewer outside parties means fewer attack surfaces.
It’s not just technology for technology’s sake. It’s all about helping Promise achieve key goals at the heart of its mission: One, making every hour of a Promise attorney’s time more valuable than that of a traditional
lawyer. Two, delivering projects as quickly and conveniently as possible. And three, helping bridge what is commonly known as the “justice gap”, where people and businesses fall when they can’t afford a lawyer but don’t qualify for free legal services.
At a traditional firm, clients pay by the hour – whether that hour is spent giving high-level strategic advice or fixing the formatting on a word document. The goal at Promise is for automations to drastically speed up the more mechanical parts of the process. Tools do the actual document drafting, and attorneys get more time for higher-value thought work. Instead of spending their hours copying, pasting, and typing, the lawyers can use that time to understand the client’s business, proactively assess risks, and develop creative solutions to problems the client hasn’t even spotted yet. Promise’s attorneys also devote more time to developing expertise, including digging deep into emerging tech issues. Hopefully, the result is higher-value services and, frankly, a much more fulfilling work environment for the lawyers themselves.
