350 hours saved in a year and faster deals

Background

PE Firm X is a private equity firm based on the West Coast with $4bn AUM. They focus on long-term investments in mid-market businesses in periods of operational or strategic transition. Their portfolio includes companies across financial services, restaurants, retail and financial services.

Context: struggling with a slow, inconsistent service

PE Firm X was using a contract review service from an established provider in the private markets space. There were a number of problems with the services that were causing delayed deals, increased workloads for the internal legal team, and high friction in their contract processes. The result was dissatisfaction across different teams including the Deal Teams, the Investor Relations Teams and the Legal Team. PE Firm X sought to find a new provider that was able to deliver a high quality, cost-effective and consistent service to their team. Their concerns with their existing supplier started early in the relationship, and can be summarised as follows:

• They had contracted with the service provider but had to sign an additional contract with an unknown legal services provider based out of a different jurisdiction. This legal services provider would actually be delivering the contract review services. PE Firm X had not met, vetted or verified the quality of the output from this third party that would actually be doing the work. The established provider did not have an in-house team of legal professionals who were vetted to deliver the work.
• The quality of the markups was extremely poor. Often the playbook positions were not applied. Basic checklist items were completely missed. Different language was applied in every markup. There were instances where pages of the contracts had not been reviewed at all. The legal team described the quality of the services as being “sloppy”, containing grammatical errors, incorrect terms and missing information. PE Firm X had 10 reported instances of NDAs not even including a termination date - one of the most basic requirements on their checklist.
• The turnaround times were very frustrating for the team to manage. Sometimes documents were returned in 24 hours but it often took much longer for the first markup to be received back. They could not rely on documents being returned on a specific timeline. They didn’t have coverage across multiple time zones which led to significant delays in receiving markups. Different stakeholders at the 3rd party legal services provider would provide wildly different quality of work and turnaround times.
• Due to the nature of the relationship with the 3rd party contractor that was actually delivering the contract services to PE Firm X, there was a big discrepancy between the performance of specific individuals within that team. PE Firm X had only met with one stakeholder from that team who was a qualified lawyer in jurisdiction outside the United States, but the remainder of the team were often untrained team members and there were no assurances given that the work output would be vetted by more experienced professional on the team.
• The 3rd party contractor team were often non-responsive to emails, meaning that constructive feedback and advice given about issues with the service was not acknowledged and meant that issues just kept ongoing (like missing basic checklist items) instead of being resolved promptly. Correcting the same mistakes time and time again was proving very grating for the legal team. The account manager that they had been assigned at the service provider was not able to advise on the situation as they didn’t have any visibility over the quality of the markups and weren’t able to support with getting a more structured, consistent service. Their focus was only on trying to get the team at PE firm X to submit more contracts to them for review - which they were reluctant to do given the quality and service issues identified.

Fundamentally, PE Firm X did not feel that they had a trusted, long-term partnership with the supplier that would enable their legal team to free up time, to mitigate risk and to keep transactions moving forward. The objectives that they had set out were not being met, and they were not receiving a premium service.

Objectives and criteria for new successful partnership on contract review services

• Faster turnaround times ensuring that there is coverage across different time zones to support their global deal-making
• Delivery of highly accurate markups that require no further edits and do not miss any key items in playbooks and checklists
• Comprehensive reporting on a monthly basis
  • Turnaround times for first markup
  • Fund data for cost allocation
  • Most active users from PE Firm X
  • Number of contracts sent by document type
  • Target Assets / Companies
• Greater efficiencies and consistencies achieved through use of Legal AI tools
• Reliable, responsive in-house team of legal professionals to ensure consistent and timely approach

Transition to a new partnership

Following a discussion with the Robin AI team about the unique elements of their offering for the Private Markets, including AI-native tools to deliver faster markup, a dedicated in-house of legal professionals and much stronger reported data on client satisfaction with the responsiveness and consistency of the services, PE Firm X decided to make the switch to Robin AI.

• An initial 30-day free trial period with Robin AI ensured that the team had the correct information they needed to proceed with Robin AI for all NDA first markups going forward. During the trial the team were able to validate:
  • 4 hour turnaround times were consistently met
  • The dedicated Robin AI team were highly responsive and engaged
  • The global coverage of the Robin AI team provided consistent results (across hubs in New York, London, Belfast, Singapore and Melbourne)
  • The quality of the markups was very high and didn’t require any edits from the legal team at PE Firm X
  • The accuracy was excellent across all of the contracts submitted with no missing information or playbooks applied incorrectly
• Initial concerns about moving from existing provider were quickly mitigated through the support of Robin AI’s expert team of legal professionals. Playbooks were formulated and enhanced within the space of 2 days. Even at this stage in the process, PE Firm X commented on the vast improvement of the playbooks for their NDA reviews and how knowledgeable and commercial the Robin AI team were. The robust approach to the definition of playbooks and positions enabled Robin AI to leverage both Legal AI and expert legal professionals to get the highest quality work turned around in a short time-frame.
• The responsiveness, accuracy and round-the-clock coverage of Robin AI’s team were some of the standout differences. Since transitioning to Robin AI the quality of the work has improved dramatically due to Robin AI’s comprehensive approach to quality control and the structure and training of the in-house legal team.

Unexpected wins from working with a true partner to the business

• Playbooks
  • Robin AI’s expert team have vast experience crafting, delivering and implementing AI-powered playbooks. PE Firm X were impressed with the quality and diligence that the Robin AI team demonstrated when advising on playbooks.
• Market Insights
  • Throughout the partnership, the Robin AI team have been instrumental in providing guidance on how to update the playbooks to align with market trends and positions leading to even faster turnaround times and a more commercial approach.
• Workflow
  • Delivering detailed monthly reports that enables the team to quickly associate specific documents with particular funds or investors, and to monitor the volume of documents and contract types
  • The Robin AI team nudges the relevant Deal Team members or Legal Team members to get alignment on final approval points which are baked into PE Firm X’s playbook
  • Preparing the execution form documents to align with PE Firm X’s internal policy, populating sign off tables and sending executed documents to certain members of the Legal & Compliance team for record-keeping purposes are all areas where the Robin AI team are helping PE Firm X to save significant time and effort.
  • Sometimes the small things matter - Robin AI team members are always diligent about aligning document names to PE Firm X’s internal naming conversion and providing template escalation emails and more - all helps to create a seamless experience when partnering with Robin AI.
• Widening coverage across different routine contracts
  • Following the initial transition period, the team at PE Firm X decided to send much greater volumes and types of different routine documents to the Robin AI Team. This included B2Bs, NRLs, HHLs, Document Destruction Requests, Access Letters and Engagement Letters.
• Night and day difference of working with a dedicated in-house team of specialists -
  • Safe in the knowledge that all of the team at Robin AI have been through comprehensive insider trading certification processes and have a safe, secure environment from which to carry out the contract reviews removed a big risk factor from the relationship.
• Deep AI expertise
  • With a number of companies operating in and around the private markets space purporting to use AI to deliver faster and better quality work, Robin AI is clearly is the market-leader when it comes to AI-native products and services. The Legal Team at PE Firm X were able to see how Robin AI’s Legal Assistant was leveraged by the in-house team at legal professionals to access precision redline edits based on PE Firm X’s playbook positions and how the tools helped to accelerate other tasks like checking the defined terms.

Q2 2024 actuals

First markup of NDAs

Number of NDAs126Contracted Turnaround Time with Robin AI for Standard NDA ReviewNext Business DayContracted Turnaround Time with Robin AI for Urgent NDA Review< 4 HoursStandard NDA Review Actuals9.2 hoursUrgent NDA Review Actuals2.1 hours

Robin AI’s expert team deliver the fastest turnaround time on the market for routine documents like NDAs, ELs, NRLs etc. These results are consistent across Robin AI’s extensive client base across Private Equity Firms, Hedge Funds and Private Credit specialists. These results are achieved by leveraging legal & AI experts working across multiple time zones to provide global coverage.

Return on Investment partnering with Robin AI

• Time savings not double-checking work
  • Given the extensive improvements in the quality of the work, the team at PE Firm X are not spending just 4 minutes per NDA on average which is the time to take the process the documents to Robin AI via the secure inbox.
  • This represents a time-saving of approximately 21 minutes per NDA that is processed. In Q2 alone, the legal department processed 126 NDAs. This represents a time-saving of 44.1 hours across the period of just one quarter.
• Enhanced involvement from Robin AI team has reduced the amount of effort and time spent managing NDAs - preparing for execution, chasing the counterparty etc.
  • Whilst the actual first markup of the NDA is probably the most time-consuming step in the process, that’s not to say that there aren’t other areas of the process that aren’t equally frustrating to get NDAs to the point of execution. Due to the highly responsive and process-driven approach across the legal team at Robin AI, involvement of lawyers from PE Firm X in the end-to-end NDA review process has been significantly reduced.
  • This represents an additional time saving of approximately 15 minutes per NDA that is negotiated. Across the Q2 numbers of 126 NDAs processed, this is a further 31.5 hours saved per quarter.
• Time to send an NDA over under 5 minutes
  • As the Robin AI team have crafted and developed playbooks to support the team at PE firm X, it takes only a couple of minutes to send over the documents to the Robin AI and they take care of the rest of the process. Documents can be sent to Robin AI at any time.
• Turnaround time in less than 4 hours in urgent stream workflow game-changing for moving deals forward
  • In a highly competitive market landscape for PE Firms, especially ones like PE Firm X whose primary operations are in the mid-market, time is really critical to get to explore the best market opportunities. The turnaround time on average of 2.1 hours for fast-stream services with Robin AI is a full 24 hours quicker than when their previous provider.
• Clear reporting saves the legal team about 4 hours per month and gives better visibility across deal flow
  • To support a lot of the administration work around allocating costs and understanding workflow, the Robin AI team prepare for PE Firm X a report on a monthly basis that provides all the information required. Over a period of a quarter, this saves approximately 12 hours of time.
• Scalability in the lean legal department
  • PE Firm X has been able to keep legal team headcount stable despite raising a new fund at the start of this year. A longer term firm objective it to make the legal processes more scalable so that additional workstreams can be supported without needing to add legal department headcount.
• Peace of mind that transactions are always moving forward at any time of day
  • Echoed by other General Counsels and Chief Compliance Officers in PE firms, the team at PE Firm X commented “I have more confidence in the process because of the AI and the legal professional review that takes place - I sleep better at night knowing that these documents, because there are so many, are reviewed well.”

The conservative estimate of time-savings across the team at PE Firm X in a single quarter is approximately 87.6 hours - or 3.65 days. Extrapolating these numbers across a 1 year period demonstrates that over 350 hours - or 14.5 days - more time savings can be achieved as compared with using another provider for contract review services.

On top of these huge time savings, business objectives around moving deals forward faster and making more scalable processes in the legal department are easily achieved by partnering with businesses like Robin AI.

Thinking that it’s time to transition?

Robin AI delivers managed contract services powered by AI to leaders in the Private Markets. Their global in-house team of legal professionals leverage cutting-edge Legal AI to deliver the fastest contract turnaround times on the market. With an approach that leverages AI-powered playbooks and Robin AI’s Legal Assistant, the legal team at Robin AI are proud of the consistent, reliable and highly accurate service that they give to customers.

If your firm is exploring opportunities to enhance turnaround times and to keep deals moving forward quickly, the Robin AI team are happy to support. A free 30-day trial is available to all leaders in the Private Markets to assess the time-savings achieved and the quality of the work delivered as compared to other contract services providers.

Get in touch with the Robin AI team to learn more.

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