What is the process of creating templates?

The process can be illustrated with an example. Acme's legal department seeks to create a template for a software licensing agreement from a set of 32 different software licensing agreements that it has used over the years.

SAMPLE ENGAGEMENT

Acting as a consultant to Acme, we create a Reference Set by processing the license agreements using the Template Generator. The processing would take just a few minutes and would create a template outline and clause library.

If we were dealing with a large set of documents and the aim is to create a Reference Set as a research resource, Acme would publish the computer-generated Reference Set to a website for immediate use. But in this example, Acme is seeking to create a standard agreement based on a relatively small set of documents, so we'd use the Workbench tool to edit the template and clause libraries.

• We'd review the outline and source documents to determine the variation in the Reference Set. If necessary, we'd break the Reference Set into subgroups, with perhaps one for object-code license agreements and another for end-user license agreements, with a separate sub-template for each group. Or we'd tag the clauses found in each sub-type so that they're included in the document-assembly system.

• Next, we might refine the outline by rearranging the clauses, changing headings, or combining related clauses.

• Then for each provision we'd review the default clause selected by the Template Generator and if necessary override the computer's selection. We might also select alternative clauses in order to include them in the document-assembly system.

Finally, we'd edit the clause language using the Clause Editor to ensure that all language is consistent. All selected language would be reviewed by Acme's attorneys before the template is loaded into the document-assembly system.

Learn More...