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How Long Should It Actually Take to Draft a Commercial Lease?

Benchmarks from platform data showing what average teams achieve vs. top performers, and where the time actually goes.

David Saltman

David Saltman

CEO, Former CRE Attorney

November 29, 20246 min read

TL;DR

Using anonymized platform data, we reveal the benchmarks: what the average is, what top teams achieve, and where the time actually goes. The bottleneck is rarely legal judgment, it's the mechanical work.

§ 01

The Question Nobody Can Answer

Ask a CRE legal team how long it takes to draft a lease, and you'll get a range: "It depends." On complexity. On property type. On how many rounds of negotiation. What they rarely account for is the true cost of doing it all in Word and Excel.

But when pressed for a number, most teams genuinely don't know. They've never measured it systematically.

We have. From thousands of leases drafted on the LeasePilot platform, here's what we see.

§ 02

The Benchmarks

From usage patterns across our customer base:

MetricIndustry Average (Manual)LeasePilot AverageTop Quartile
New Retail Lease10-14 hours3-4 hours2-2.5 hours
New Office Lease8-12 hours2.5-3.5 hours1.5-2 hours
Industrial Lease6-10 hours2-3 hours1-1.5 hours
Amendment3-5 hours45-90 min30-45 min
Renewal4-6 hours1-2 hours45-75 min

These numbers measure time from deal terms to first draft, before negotiation begins.

First-draft time benchmarks: manual vs. LeasePilotA range chart comparing typical first-draft time for five lease types. Manual drafting takes 6–14 hours for new leases and 3–6 hours for amendments and renewals. With LeasePilot, the same drafts take 2–4 hours for new leases and under 90 minutes for amendments and renewals.First-draft time benchmarksFrom deal terms to first draft, before negotiation begins.0 hrs3h6h9h12hNew retail lease10–14 hrs3–4 hrsNew office lease8–12 hrs2.5–3.5 hrsIndustrial lease6–10 hrs2–3 hrsAmendment3–5 hrs45–90 minRenewal4–6 hrs1–2 hrsManual (industry avg.)LeasePilot avg.
Fig. 1 · Time from deal terms to first draft, by lease type

§ 03

Where the Time Actually Goes

When we break down the drafting process, a clear pattern emerges:

Legal Judgment: 15-25% of Total Time

Clause selection based on deal terms. Credit assessment informing security provisions. Risk evaluation for non-standard requests.

This is the work that requires a law degree. It's irreducible.

Mechanical Work: 75-85% of Total Time

  • Template hunting and setup: 10-15%
  • Data entry and propagation: 20-30%
  • Calculations (rent, TI, escalations): 15-20%, work that shouldn't require a law degree
  • Formatting and cleanup: 10-15%
  • Cross-referencing and consistency checks: 10-15%

§ 04

The Implication

The teams that draft fastest aren't making faster legal decisions. They're eliminating mechanical work.

When a system handles data entry, calculations, and formatting, the attorney's time goes entirely to judgment, the 15-25% that actually requires expertise.

§ 05

What "Fast" Looks Like in Practice

A top-performing team drafting a standard retail lease:

  1. Deal terms entered (5 minutes). Tenant info, property, rent structure, key dates
  2. Clause selections made (10-15 minutes). The attorney selects credit-appropriate provisions and property-specific language from their own encoded options
  3. System generates draft (instant). Complete lease with calculated schedules
  4. Attorney reviews output (15-20 minutes). Verify selections, check for deal-specific needs
  5. First draft sent (total: 30-40 minutes)

The attorney spent 25-35 minutes on judgment. The system handled everything else.

§ 06

Why This Matters Beyond Efficiency

Speed isn't just about cost savings. It's about:

Deal velocity: Landlords who deliver drafts in 48 hours set the first-draft advantage. Those who take two weeks signal disorganization.

Attorney satisfaction: Lawyers didn't go to law school to format rent schedules. Removing mechanical work lets them do actual legal work.

Capacity without headcount: A three-attorney team producing what used to require five or six. Customer landlords on the platform have grown lease volume 170% with zero additional hires.


The question isn't whether your team is "fast enough." It's whether they're spending their time on work that requires their expertise, or on work a system should handle.

§ See it in practice

Reading about it is one thing. Watching it happen is another.

See LeasePilot draft a lease in your team’s own templates, with your clauses and your defaults.