In my article “Why is Leasing So Time Sensitive?” I identified two underlying factors that make the process of getting a lease finalized and signed-up unacceptably long. In this Article, I take a look at those factors and provide solutions.
Unnecessary Coordination Causes Bottlenecks.
The leasing representative negotiates the Letter of Intent (LOI) and gets the transaction approved. She knows the building, the tenant’s specific requirements and the market drivers that make the deal work. It’s the lawyer’s job, however, to transform an LOI into a lease document. But the lawyer is missing key information that the leasing representative possesses. Without that information it is impossible to prepare a lease. And so, the leasing representative and lawyer exchange emails and drafts and have calls or in-person meetings to get the document right. This process of emailing and talking and then talking and emailing sucks up an enormous amount of both the leasing representative’s and lawyer’s time. Limiting these interactions, therefore, dramatically reduces the amount of time required to iterate and finalized a lease document.
Outdated Tools Make Drafting a Lease Unacceptably Slow.
In addition to communication, the other main source of delay is the act of drafting the lease document itself. Turning complex drafts can often take 4+ hours of concentrated legal time. Given a specific attorney’s priorities and workload, freeing up that time may take a week or more. A lease, though, is a predictable document. The business outcomes for the various terms of a lease are numerous, but ultimately finite. Nevertheless, lawyers are generally required to either re-draft complex provisions whole-cloth, or rifle through old deals to find an appropriate starting point to work from.
But what if lawyers, paralegals and leasing representatives could assemble leases by accessing a database of leasing provisions specifically tailored to their organization and forms? And what if that database of provisions could be infinitely customized on the fly for a specific transaction and then recalled for later use?
Document Automation + Specialized Word Processing = Speed.
LeasePilot does just that. LeasePilot gives leasing representatives the tools to “assemble” a lease to fit the transaction on their own while providing attorneys a powerful word processing system specifically designed to expedite the drafting of customized lease provisions. The result: more of the lease is handled by the person that knows the transaction best, the leasing representative, in less time than she used to spend communicating with her lawyer. And the lawyer can focus where her expertise is needed. Email chatter is minimized, drafting time is accelerated and leases are closed faster.
