A leading global investment management firm engaged Barnes & Thornburg to help it manage a high volume of complex non-disclosure agreements that needed to be negotiated quickly with many different counterparties. The firm’s ongoing transaction and investment activity generated a steady flow of NDAs requiring rapid review and turnaround.

Challenge

Manually reviewing each NDA often took more than two hours, a pace that was difficult to sustain given the volume of agreements moving through the pipeline and the speed at which the business needed them turned around.

Approach

Barnes & Thornburg’s contracts team built an AI-powered playbook from the client’s own prior negotiated agreements to streamline the first-pass review of NDAs. Drawing on established rules and negotiating strategies, Harvey AI quickly flags problematic terms and suggests revisions based on the lawyers’ own prior language, while attorneys continue to review and exercise judgment over the final work product.

Impact

Review time dropped by more than 50%, allowing the team to turn around agreements faster and review a greater volume of NDAs without sacrificing quality. By building the tool on the firm’s own negotiated precedent, Barnes & Thornburg delivered consistent, high-quality first-pass results at the speed the client’s deal flow demanded – all while reducing the client’s legal spend.