Eat the frog: using legal tech to tackle the most complex and time-intensive real estate work
Annabel Comyn, customer success manager at Avail, explores how law firms can use AI-embedded legal technology to take an ‘eat the frog’ approach to complex, time-consuming and manual real estate work, including document review
A common difficulty felt by lawyers and property professionals is how to digest the vast amount of data that relates to each property, development or estate. From leases and title registers to planning reports, management information, valuation data, compliance records and so on, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know where to start in order to manually organise and sift through this data effectively. The increasing volume of this information — alongside frequently tight timescales and high client expectations — means that more law firms are turning to legal technology and AI to ensure they can not only keep up with their competitors, but also ensure that these pressures do not harm team motivation and wellbeing.
Tech built by people who know the pressure
At Avail, we recognise that the mounting volume of legal data means it can be hard to feel as though quick, accurate progress can be made through the review of this information, particularly in time-sensitive situations. With this quandary forming the backbone of our legal technology, we have harnessed our technology to address this issue head on — in the real estate sector specifically, tailoring our reports to ensure that document review and portfolio management is a simpler and frankly more enjoyable process.
Many of us at Avail have prior legal and real estate backgrounds. As a result, we have experience of the pressures in all corners the industry. We recognise that it would not be unusual for a conveyancer dealing with a leasehold purchase to need to review 100+ documents. For an asset manager, a typical commercial building such as a shopping centre or social housing scheme might easily have 200+ leases to record. The only way forward to stay on top is to embrace legal technology and to use it at the start and throughout workflows. If it is used effectively, legal technology and AI will perform better than humans can at processing large volumes of information quickly and accurately. Its functionality has the ability, for the first time ever in the real estate sector, to quickly collate data across up to hundreds of documents in one go.
The result is an accurate, clear and concise output addressing all the key areas. By removing the multiple manual hours of document sifting and sorting, this provides the user with ability to begin their review of the documents straight away, without having to start building a report from scratch. The common saying ‘tidy house, tidy mind’ supports this perfectly. A neat and structured report generated by legal technology at the outset of a transaction, which refers clearly to the information and documents, allows for the user to begin their cross-check and review of the information with a clear focus, sharper way of thinking and a calmer mindset.
Legal tech that accelerates, not complicates
This capability translates directly into faster document review, improved organisation and, in turn, better decision-making. However, it is important to stress that legal technology and AI should not make real estate professionals’ lives harder — it is here to be a confident and effective acceleration tool. The key is to use the most effective technology available to cut through the tedious administrative parts of real estate matters.
Designed specifically for real estate
Therefore, it is vital to choose a legal technology provider that can produce the best results, tailored specifically for real estate documents. To achieve this, Avail’s AI and technology is pre-trained with a real estate focus to ensure that it provides a consistently useful output. For example, we understand that a restriction listed on a property’s title register will be succinct enough to prevent a need for further summarisation. In fact, in attempting to condense that restriction, you may very quickly lose key details. In this instance, it is more far more useful and accurate to simply verbatim extract that restriction into a report. The crucial point is that this datapoint is automatically neatly categorised and flagged to the user to review in an organised report.
Why legal tech is no longer optional
In a pressurised real estate industry, it is important to ensure we do not become overwhelmed by time burdens and large quantities of information. If we do, then naturally it will adversely affect our productivity. The way forward is to use technology harmoniously with your document review. If used responsibly, AI offers an invaluable productivity advantage. Across the sector — no matter whether you are a lawyer, property professional or asset manager — intelligentially organised information provides a springboard to give you the confidence that key risks and issues can be managed effectively across the lifecycle of a property asset or transaction. This assurance, while also knowing that AI provides you with a second pair of eyes and a catalyst to your data review, is the key to remaining at the top of your game.
