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Intelligent document management provider NetDocuments has rolled out a legal context graph for in-house legal teams, which it claims is an “industry-first” offering for corporate legal departments.
Corporate legal teams are being offered a new way to connect and access information across their organisations, as legal technology provider NetDocuments rolls out a redesigned platform featuring its legal context graph.
The intelligent document management provider has described the platform as an “industry-first” legal context graph designed specifically for corporate legal departments.
The development comes as in-house lawyers face increasingly broad workloads, often juggling contracts, disputes, regulatory matters, employment issues and commercial transactions within the same day.
The legal context graph allows corporate legal teams to open a matter and automatically surface information connected to previous work, including relevant contracts, earlier negotiations, external legal advice, key stakeholders, timelines and communications.
While finding documents isn’t necessarily the biggest challenge facing corporate legal teams, NetDocuments stressed that the real difficulty lies in “finding the right context” and understanding how information connects to previous work.
Rather than forcing lawyers to start with a blank page, the reworked experience brings documents, communications, people and previous work into a connected view, giving teams access to the wider history and knowledge surrounding a matter.
Chief product officer Dan Hauck said the technology has been developed in response to the growing need for corporate legal teams to use tools that understand not only the work being undertaken, but also the wider context surrounding it.
“Corporate legal departments need a system that understands work in context and can act on it. In-house lawyers must navigate complex legal and business issues,” Hauck said.
“The context graph connects the relationships, history, and knowledge behind every matter or project, giving corporate legal teams immediate context from the outset. This ensures years of institutional knowledge remain accessible and actionable across the business.”
The technology is also aimed at changing the way corporate legal departments work with external law firms.
Before instructing outside counsel, NetDocuments said the technology will allow in-house lawyers to draw on previous work to establish whether similar advice, research, pleadings, investigations, or negotiations have already been undertaken.
This could allow legal teams to make greater use of work that has already been completed, while giving external advisers a clearer picture of the organisation’s previous experience when they are brought in.
Lucy Wasmund, associate general counsel at NetDocuments, said the technology could address a longstanding problem for corporate lawyers who have traditionally had to piece together information from emails, different systems, and their own experience.
“After more than 15 years in corporate legal departments, I see the legal context graph as transformational in bringing knowledge together, securely and in context,” Wasmund said.
“Until now, in-house lawyers have often had to connect the dots between what sits in their inbox, what exists across different systems, and what is stored in their heads.
“By making collaboration faster and more connected through AI, it will help corporate legal teams better support the business.”
