Summary: LegalSifter has hired contract law expert Ken Adams to join their team as an advisor.
The person who wrote the book on contract law is fittingly being hired by a contract software company as an advisor.
Ken Adams, a contract law expert and author of “A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting,” is now an advisor for LegalSifter, a contract software company that uses artificial and human intelligence. Law.com said that the CEO of LegalSifter had admired Adams from afar and was excited that the attorney was joining their team.
LegalSifter CEO Kevin Miller told Law.com that “You can’t be in this space for long without realizing the impact Ken makes,” and he was most certainly referring to Adams’ 20-year career writing and researching the topic of contract language.
Adams not only wrote the book about contract drafting, but he also blogs about contract law and is an adjunct professor at Notre Dame Law School. He said that he has been skeptical of the role technology could play in the contracts process, but he found it “reassuring” that LegalSifter married tech with human knowledge.
“I find that reassuring because whenever I use technology, I know that human expertise underlies it,” Adams said to Law.com. “I want to know where that expertise comes from, and I want to know that it’s reliable.”
Adams will work with clients on product design as well as review and write text that is readable for clients who are using the software.
Miller and Adams said that not all law firms are ready to use AI to write contracts but that innovators who use AI are often those who are exploring new business models, not established firms who see little reason to change their ways just yet.
“If you were able to be more effective in your contract process, if the end result is better, you are going to reap rewards,” Adams said. “Kevin and the team at LegalSifter are making a tangible bet, and I’m happy to join in that bet that the demand is going to be sufficient to make this all worthwhile.”
Adams’ book “A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting” was first published in 2004 by the American Bar Association, and it is now in its fourth edition.
Adams graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1989 and worked as a corporate lawyer in New York City and Geneva, Switzerland. In addition to teaching Notre Dame, he has also taught at Hofstra University School of Law and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
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