In case your in-house authorized crew remains to be choosing exterior counsel primarily based on legacy relationships, hunches, or inner fame, you’re not alone. However you may additionally be holding again your organization’s development. In a latest episode of “Notes to My (Authorized) Self,” I sat down with Otto Hanson, co-founder and CEO of TermScout and Screens, to speak about how contract overview is evolving and the way forward-looking authorized groups can cease outsourcing by intuition and begin scaling common sense by technique, information, and expertise.
From Regulation Agency Burnout To Product-Minded Builder
Otto started his profession in a well-recognized place, Biglaw. “I used to be a company lawyer at Davis Graham and Stubbs, and I liked serving to shoppers,” he stated. “However a lot of the work I did was tedious, menial, and didn’t justify the billable hour. It wasn’t a superb use of my time or theirs.”
That realization planted the seed for TermScout, a platform centered on reviewing, benchmarking, and certifying contracts. But it surely didn’t cease there. With the rise of GPT-4 and generative AI, Otto and his crew launched a second platform, Screens, which lets authorized groups construct and share AI-powered contract playbooks. “It’s about letting legal professionals craft AI to suppose like them,” Otto defined. “The purpose is to show data into scalable, defensible authorized merchandise.”
The Drawback With Instinctual Outsourcing
One of the crucial harmful defaults in authorized departments is selecting distributors and reviewing contracts primarily based on familiarity. “There’s this perception that large companies are at all times the most secure selection,” Otto famous. “However that’s now not true for low to medium-risk work. There are higher, sooner, extra specialised choices and most authorized groups are leaving worth on the desk by not exploring them.”
Instinctual outsourcing results in costly inefficiencies, bloated deal cycles, and contracts that replicate legacy habits as a substitute of enterprise targets. Otto identified that many authorized groups are instructed by their CROs or CEOs, “Authorized, cease getting in the best way of gross sales. Your job is to help the enterprise.”
That wake-up name will be uncomfortable. But it surely’s additionally an invite to steer.
Codify Your Judgment Earlier than You Scale It
When authorized leaders transfer from intuition to intention, all the things shifts. Otto shared a easy but transformative strategy his crew makes use of with shoppers: the risk-complexity matrix.
“We actually create a matrix: excessive, medium, low danger on one axis, and excessive, medium, low complexity on the opposite,” he defined. “Then we map all of the tasks from the previous yr and have a look at what was spent the place. That turns into a blueprint for smarter allocation.”
This type of pondering permits in-house groups to match the appropriate job to the appropriate supplier, and to outline why a given agency or resolution is getting used. That defensibility issues. Particularly when authorized is being requested to justify spend in language the CFO understands.
Certify Belief, Not Simply Threat
Past higher triage, Otto believes authorized groups can go additional by turning contracts into enterprise belongings. That’s the place TermScout’s certification layer is available in.
“Increasingly corporations are waking up and saying: we don’t have to win on each clause,” Otto stated. “We want a contract that closes offers. Certification helps authorized show that the phrases are truthful, affordable, and aligned with market expectations.”
The platform affords badges like Licensed Balanced or Licensed Buyer-Favorable, backed by public benchmarks and clear methodology. “It really works,” Otto stated. “It shortens deal cycles, builds belief, and alerts professionalism. And it’s straightforward to implement.”
The AI Belief Hole And Why Playbooks Matter
Regardless of all of the promise of AI, many legal professionals stay cautious. Otto known as it a “belief hole,” and he doesn’t count on it to shut in a single day.
“AI doesn’t have context,” he stated. “It doesn’t perceive the 20-year relationship together with your buyer. It doesn’t know what issues to your GC. That’s why coupling AI with human experience is the best way ahead.”
Screens, his second product, lets legal professionals construct AI playbooks that replicate their agency’s judgment. These playbooks can be utilized internally, shared throughout groups, and even supplied as merchandise. “It’s not about changing legal professionals,” Otto emphasised. “It’s about letting legal professionals scale themselves safely.”
What In-Home Authorized Ought to Do Subsequent
For those who’re in-house and wish to transfer from reactive to strategic, Otto supplied a transparent start line: “Simply begin taking part in. Take the free trial. Construct one playbook. Certify one contract. You don’t should overhaul all the things. You simply have to start.”
Small steps matter. “The instruments are altering,” Otto stated. “And when the instruments change, so ought to the enterprise mannequin.”
This shift from instinctual outsourcing to intentional decision-making isn’t theoretical. It’s the way forward for authorized. And it’s one during which readability, certification, and product pondering will separate the blockers from the enterprise builders.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of TermScout, an AI-powered contract certification platform that accelerates income and eliminates friction by certifying contracts as truthful, balanced, and market-ready. A serial CEO and authorized tech government, she beforehand led an organization by a profitable acquisition by LexisNexis. Olga can be a Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and the Generative AI Editor at regulation.MIT. She is a visionary government reshaping how we regulation—how authorized techniques are constructed, skilled, and trusted. Olga teaches at Berkeley Law, lectures extensively, and advises corporations of all sizes, in addition to boards and establishments. An award-winning basic counsel turned builder, she additionally leads early-stage ventures together with Virtual Gabby (Better Parenting Plan), Product Law Hub, ESI Flow, and Notes to My (Legal) Self, every rethinking the apply and enterprise of regulation by expertise, information, and human-centered design. She has authored The Rise of Product Lawyers, Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data, Blockchain Value, and Get on Board, with Visible IQ for Legal professionals (ABA) forthcoming. Olga is a 6x TEDx speaker and has been acknowledged as a Silicon Valley Lady of Affect and an ABA Lady in Authorized Tech. Her work reimagines folks’s relationship with regulation—making it extra accessible, inclusive, data-driven, and aligned with how the world really works. She can be the host of the Notes to My (Authorized) Self podcast (streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube), and her insights commonly seem in Forbes, Bloomberg Regulation, Newsweek, VentureBeat, ACC Docket, and Above the Regulation. She earned her B.A. and J.D. from UC Berkeley. Observe her on LinkedIn and X @olgavmack.
