Contract Express is a

document automation Document automation (also known as document assembly or document management) is the design of systems and workflows that assist in the creation of electronic documents. These include logic-based systems that use segments of pre-existing text and/or ...

program designed and developed by the Legal Solutions arm of

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

, a Canadian multinational mass media and information firm. Contract Express is available as a stand-alone app in a private or public cloud. Users of the product are typically law firms and corporations, such as

Clifford Chance Clifford Chance LLP is an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom, and a member of the "Magic Circle", a group of London-based multinational law firms. It ranks as one of top ten largest law firms in the world measured bo ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

History

In 1999/2000,

Logic Programming Associates Logic Programming Associates (LPA) is a company specializing in logic programming and artificial intelligence software. LPA was founded in 1980 and is widely known for its range of Prolog compilers and more recently for VisiRule. LPA was esta ...

partnered with a small London law firm, Tarlo-Lyons, to bring some document assembly technology to market. They formed a new company called Business Integrity Ltd and the product, which was initially called DealBuilder, eventually became Contract Express. The full story is recounted by Clive Spenser, one of the original instigators. In 2010, BIL launched contractexpress.com as described an interview with Ken Adams. In 2015, Thomson Reuters acquired Business Integrity and the company became part of the Legal business of Thomson Reuters. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Functionality

Contract Express template creation is conducted entirely within a

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms includin ...

interface. As a Microsoft Word App, Contract Express Author integrates into the Microsoft Word ribbon, providing a familiar user experience for users. The add-in provides the ease and speed of automating complex legal documents without the complexity inherent in traditional document assembly tools. Further, generated documents automatically inherit their styling from the marked-up Word document without having to apply styles to each generated document. Authors create a contract template using bracket-based markups to specify conditional text and variable fields for us in their customized templates. Once published, other users can then manipulate the document using a pre-defined questionnaire to apply client specific details and preferences. Accordingly, the need for programming skills is removed; a basic knowledge of document mark-up is all that is required. It is notable that the field control used is derived from the conventions of traditional legal document mark-up, for example use of square brackets to indicate areas for document specific information.(Press Release) The most recent version of the software is version 8.0, released in 2019. Contract Express provides users with an intuitive user interface, integrations with key legal software such as

DocuSign DocuSign, Inc. is an American company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that allows organizations to manage electronic agreements. As part of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, DocuSign offers eSignature, a way to sign electronically on diff ...

for safe electronic signature and

NetDocuments NetDocuments is a cloud-based document, email, and records management service. NetDocuments was launched in 1999 to sell enterprise applications under the software as a service (SaaS) business model. Its functionality is accessible through a web ...

for storage, and HighQ for client collaboration.

References

External links

Thomson Reuters - Contract Express
{{DEFAULTSORT:Contractexpress Document management systems Documents SharePoint Software companies of the United Kingdom

History

Functionality

See also

References

Further reading

External links