The Billable Hour's Last Stand

For decades, Big Law has clung to the billable hour like a life raft in a sea of inefficiency. Legal due diligence, especially in M&A, is still dominated by armies of junior associates combing through contracts manually, line by line, in a painfully slow and error-prone process. This isn’t legal expertise; it’s glorified data entry at $600 an hour. In an age where AI can surface key clauses in seconds, Big Law’s refusal to evolve isn’t tradition, it’s self-destruction on the installment plan.

Document Review by Candlelight

Despite their sleek websites and glossy brochures, many large firms still conduct contract review like it's 1999, with PDFs, highlighters, and spreadsheet tabs galore. Associates are buried in virtual paper, struggling to track indemnities and change-of-control provisions while drowning in version control chaos. Meanwhile, clients wait days (or weeks) for answers that modern tools could generate instantly. Big Law isn’t slow because it has to be. It’s slow because it profits from it.

Bottlenecks in Designer Suits

The biggest threat to deal speed and accuracy isn’t regulatory risk, it’s the bottleneck created by outdated workflows. Big Law firms still rely on bloated teams of lawyers manually sorting through contracts, creating delays that can kill deals and erode value. They claim it's “thorough.” We call it theatrics. With modern contract analytics, real insight is instant, searchable, and audit-ready. If your diligence process still requires an all-nighter, you’re using the wrong tools.

The Myth of High Touch Review

Big Law likes to sell diligence as a bespoke, white-glove service. In reality, most of it is mechanical clause-spotting by overworked associates who rotate in and out like temps. The only thing high-touch about this process is the hourly rate. Clients don’t want armies, they want answers. Our software delivers the same outputs those junior associates produce, only faster, more accurately, and at a fraction of the cost. That’s not disruption, it’s progress.