“Spellbook is saving me time in lots of different ways. There's really nothing better for the singular purpose for which Spellbook is built.”

Senior Legal Counsel Abhishek Vaidyanathan handles high-stakes contracts for the Switzerland-based NEAR Foundation. The nonprofit organization builds and maintains decentralized blockchain networks to help people and businesses manage money and data without the time-consuming expense and hassle of traditional banks. 

Abhishek uses Spellbook to draft, review, understand, and revise a wide variety of intricately detailed agreements regarding business development and strategic partnerships in a new and fast-developing technology field.

“I don't have to draft contracts from scratch. If a clause needs to be rewritten based on comments, I use Spellbook to provide a first pass of the rewrite. I can ask Spellbook questions about a particular clause or section,” Abhishek says. These and other capabilities enable Abhishek to benefit from:

• A 30% or higher lift in efficiency compared to prior contract drafting and negotiation methods.
• Faster issue-spotting to quickly pinpoint the most relevant issues in long, complex agreements. 
• Additional legal context and examples that help him understand and redraft unfamiliar terms and clauses to better reflect the NEAR Foundation’s evolving business needs.

Spot the most relevant issues quickly, even in long, complex agreements

“I primarily use Spellbook to review agreements and understand key clauses that may present issues from NEAR Foundation’s perspective,” Abhishek says. “It’s quite useful, especially for larger agreements with many moving parts.”

Some of the more detailed contracts Abhishek reviews include nuanced, one-sided clauses that are often time-consuming to locate and evaluate. When refining language to reach an agreement between counterparties, Abhishek gets to the bottom of what matters quickly by tapping into Spellbook’s specialized features.

“I may use the suggestions function or the recently added negotiation function to perform an initial review of an agreement and figure out what terms I might adjust or alter. Then, I turn that over to the other side,” Abhishek says.

“It's quite useful, especially for larger agreements with many moving parts.”

A 30% lift in efficiency

“Spellbook provides about a 30% lift in my efficiency, if not higher. I’m a big fan of the product. It’s a huge time saver.”

Abhishek ran a highly complex 70-page partnership agreement through Spellbook’s negotiation function. “It helped me understand what the issues were from our perspective. It did a fairly good job—about what I would expect of a new junior associate,” he says.

Next, Abhishek used the Spellbook draft function and edited its output to reshape several of the agreement’s one-sided clauses to better suit the NEAR Foundation’s needs. 

“For a 70-page agreement that would have taken me three to four hours to review, Spellbook saved me at least an hour and 20 minutes,” Abhishek confirms. “That’s because I can focus immediately on the parts that matter and then do a whole read-through instead of trying to find what matters during a first-pass review,” Abhishek explains.

“For a 70-page agreement that would have taken me three to four hours to review, Spellbook saved me at least an hour and 20 minutes. It did a fairly good job -- about what I would expect of a new junior associate.”

Get contextual help with the unfamiliar

When Abhishek encounters a contract that involves laws or jurisdictions he’s unfamiliar with, Spellbook saves him time by providing general context or showing him how a provision may work in practice. 

“Say it's a funding agreement, like an LP agreement. I can ask Spellbook, ‘How do the redemption provisions work? Can you use an example to explain that?’ This helps me understand the agreement better, saving me time,” Abhishek adds.

This aspect of Spellbook's value will only increase as legal complexities grow (99% of in-house counsel report a surge in both the volume and complexity of legal matters). Imagine advising a global business on handling international laws or guiding a small company in managing the latest privacy regulations. Spellbook's AI uses the most up-to-date information available to clarify legal nuances and their practical application, making it an invaluable asset to ensure you provide optimal legal guidance.

Plans for future savings

Abhishek believes the best way for legal technology vendors to deliver software like Spellbook is to work on it, then reiterate and reiterate again, rather than trying to only release perfect features. 

“That's what's great about your team. You push out new features quickly. It's not necessarily all perfect,” he says, “but I've seen Spellbook improve considerably in the time that I've used it.” 

Abhishek sees particular value in Spellbook’s “draft precedent” function, believing “it will be enormously useful as it improves” because he’ll be able to use a solid agreement as a base, request specific edits, and automatically generate a high-quality draft. 

“That's going to save everybody a lot of time,” he says. “We're really excited to be using your product. I think we will expand usage to at least two of our junior lawyers, as I'd like to get more of our team using it,” Abhishek says.

The Spellbook team is just as excited about the future as Abhishek is. Want to see why?  Try Spellbook for free today.