Orrick is a global law firm representing clients across 25 markets, well known for representing tech behemoths. The Financial Times has ranked Orrick as one of the top three most innovative firms in North America for the last seven years.

Their platform, MAPE 2.0, won the Reinventing Legal Practice category in the Financial Times’ North America Innovative Lawyers Report in 2022. MAPE 2.0 “transforms M&A execution” by combining “tech tools, new roles, and process changes.”

With DraftWise, M&A lawyers are better equipped to fulfill MAPE’s efforts, such as pooling data for client benchmarking.

Read on to learn how DraftWise supports Orrick’s M&A practice and the firm’s commitment to innovation and legal best practices, and how using DraftWise has boosted overall attorney efficiency, professional development, and job satisfaction.
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Empowering every attorney with firm knowledge

Vedika Mehera, Director of Orrick Labs, knew that the firm could improve client successes if every attorney could systematically access the firm’s knowledge base in a more “intuitive, user-friendly” manner. The team sought out a solution that empowered attorneys to access and implement firm knowledge – instead of people searching based on what they think they know.

Access to historical knowledge and precedent is foundational to fostering long-term client relationships, and effective access to firm-wide data and precedent can be indispensable to improving client outcomes. After all, law firms win repeat business because of the history of work they’ve executed well with their clients.

Orrick thoroughly tested a variety of other leading AI solutions before choosing DraftWise. “It met all the requirements and nothing in the market at the time did,” says Mehera. It also aligned with the M&A team’s commitment to injecting innovative technology into their practice to drive better client outcomes.

As Innovation Attorney Sara Gates shared, “MAPE is committed to reducing and eliminating inefficiencies in the deal process and views DraftWise as one of the ways we can do so.”
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A swift onboarding process for the M&A team

The onboarding process was easy and moved quickly. The DraftWise customer team designed a personalized, attentive rollout campaign that ensured every attorney received 1:1 training on the platform. DraftWise’s out-of-box (albeit highly customizable) usability provided attorneys with immediate value-add to their workflows.

“We had real-time feedback, which was helpful, we didn’t have to stop using the tool,” shared an Orrick attorney. “From making sure documents were right to fiddling with how many years the attorneys were looking back and who was involved in the database, the DraftWise team understood what mattered to get to know the tool and onboard correctly.”

The Orrick team noted that “One of the biggest strengths of DraftWise is the team’s understanding of issues and requirements, and addressing problems directly.”
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Empowering Attorneys to do Higher-Level Work

The Orrick team felt the impact of the product immediately. With instant access to information on past deals, insights into market trends, and visibility into client preferences, attorneys now had the upper hand in drafting and negotiating contracts for their clients.

DraftWise eliminated much of the hassle that goes into accessing knowledge, reducing the amount of time it takes to look up precedent and compare it with red lines. In addition to AI-powered search and sub-second red line comparisons, attorneys can easily surface, understand, and utilize the firm’s most favorable client terms.

Gates says that before using DraftWise, searching for information could be a “nightmare,” between opening and downloading multiple Word docs and having to look for a specific provision, which got confusing. But with DraftWise’s more pointed searches and organization of precedent, Gates finds that attorneys like her save significant time, allowing them to draft more complex or nuanced filings earlier in the process. They’re more efficient with their work, and attorney satisfaction is higher.
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Increasing attorney job satisfaction and well-being

An accessible, intuitive database also gives more junior employees direct access to critical knowledge earlier, so they are better positioned to draft more complex deliverables. With DraftWise, junior attorneys are more involved in substantive drafting, eliminating much of their administrative work and saving them from bombarding senior staff with questions about precedent or favorable terms.

Newer attorneys “can step away from tedious tasks faster and dive into higher-level work for clients,” Gates said. More interesting work helps improve junior attorneys’ overall job satisfaction.

For Orrick, a firm that, year after year, is ranked highly on the Fortune Best Places to Work list, improving attorney satisfaction is incredibly important. And it’s not just junior attorneys that find greater job satisfaction from using DraftWise.

​​“People are way more efficient in their work – attorney satisfaction is overall higher,” added Gates.
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Purpose-Built For Lawyers

Mehera finds the DraftWise team laser-focused on integrating its feature-rich product intentionally with attorney workflows. The DraftWise platform meets attorneys where and how they work, eliminating the need for users to “workaround” the tech.

The DraftWise team provides ample feedback opportunities for its customers, taking the time to understand what is working – and what isn’t working – for users, so that they can iterate quickly and improve the product. “It's appealing to us to be able to work with a company that is willing to prioritize clients and their requests for feature updates into their road map.”

Added Gates, “DraftWise does a great job of making the product practical. They like lawyers weighing in.”
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Expanding DraftWise usage at Orrick

The Orrick M&A practice is eager to help even more attorneys at the firm access DraftWise, noting that the product’s unique ability to impact client outcomes and attorney satisfaction ranks it high on their list of innovation tools.“

Attorneys can spend more of their time on the substantive issues, ultimately leading to their improved development and job satisfaction,” said Gates.

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