Draftwise Expands AI Tools & Team, Adds Legal Experts
Legal technology firm Draftwise has unveiled significant enhancements to its agentic AI platform, alongside a substantial expansion of its global team. These developments include the strategic hire of Emily Lew, formerly a prominent figure at Magic Circle firm Slaughter and May, who joined Draftwise’s London operations earlier this year to lead client engagement.
The latest iteration of Draftwise’s contract-focused AI introduces three core capabilities designed to fundamentally alter how legal professionals approach complex agreements. Building on insights garnered from a multi-year development partnership with US law firm Gunderson and feedback from early adopters, these tools aim to streamline intricate legal processes.
First, Intelligent Precedent Benchmarking empowers lawyers to instantly analyze standard contractual provisions across vast datasets and identify unusual or non-standard terms. This feature answers complex questions like “What other representations and warranties might my client want in this agreement?” or “How does this clause compare to recent similar agreements?”, delivering insights that previously demanded hours of painstaking manual research.
Second, Automated Term Sheet Validation automates the painstaking process of cross-referencing draft agreements against term sheets. By simply instructing the AI to “Check this Sale and Purchase Agreement against the uploaded term sheet,” the system rapidly identifies alignment issues, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual checks.
Third, Strategic Contract Guidance provides sophisticated legal strategy by leveraging a firm’s historical practices. This advanced capability can, for instance, suggest deleting buyer or seller representations that a client hasn’t agreed to in the past two years, or recommend adjustments to make a clause more buyer-friendly based on recent similar deals. The AI learns from a firm’s institutional knowledge to provide tailored recommendations and can extract essential information from ad-hoc requests, acting as a dynamic strategic advisor.
Beyond its technological advancements, Draftwise has significantly bolstered its human capital, growing to nearly 70 employees globally across the US, EMEA, and APAC regions, with particular expansion in London and New York. This growth includes strengthening its legal expertise with the addition of three former practicing lawyers. Emily Lew, who previously led Slaughter and May’s Client & Practice Solutions team for five years, now spearheads client engagement efforts in London. She is joined by Elizabete Ludborza, a London-based attorney with in-house experience and a background as a founder, who has joined the company’s go-to-market (GTM) team. Stephanie Nweke, who practiced in the Venture Capital group at Wilson Sonsini, has also joined the GTM team, based in New York City. To accommodate this expanding workforce, Draftwise has opened a new London office and plans a significant expansion of its New York office in Manhattan this fall.
James Ding, CEO of Draftwise, emphasized the transformative potential of these tools, stating, “When lawyers see what Draftwise is capable of and how easily they can access decades of winning insight in minutes, they can’t wait to get access.” He noted that their work with Gunderson confirms this enthusiasm with demonstrable results, asserting that the product “amplifies the strategic thinking that takes law firms decades to develop.” Ding concluded that Draftwise customers can now scale their institutional knowledge across every transaction intuitively and with confidence.
Echoing this sentiment, Joe Green, Chief Innovation Officer at Gunderson, remarked, “This partnership has redefined what’s possible in legal technology. Our lawyers are genuinely excited about Draftwise – that’s rare with new technology.” He added that Draftwise perfectly aligns with Gunderson’s innovation strategy of adopting cutting-edge solutions that enhance their ability to serve clients in the fast-moving venture capital ecosystem, delivering tangible improvements in how efficiently their teams handle complex deals.