How Thomas Flavell accelerated agreements with Clarilis’ MCL suite
Leases may be part of the day-to-day work for regional law firm Thomas Flavell & Sons but getting to a signed agreement can demand significant effort. Clarilis’ pre-automated Model Commercial Lease (“MCL”) suite allows their property team to produce agreements faster and deliver a better client experience.
Introducing Thomas Flavell
Founded over 200 years ago, Midlands-based Thomas Flavell & Sons is a regional law firm with five offices across Warwickshire and Leicestershire. The firm provides legal services for both businesses and individuals and prides itself on seeking creative solutions for its clients in the ever-changing legal market.
The goal: Using innovation to speed up lease transactions
Tenants, landlords and lawyers – all parties involved in leases want to get signatures on documents as swiftly as possible. The problem is that leases take time and effort to draft and can often then be subject to a tug-of-war between landlord and tenant over terms. Thomas Flavell & Sons decided to explore how technology could help streamline the process and reduce transaction time.
Jamie Connolly, Managing Director of Thomas Flavell & Sons Solicitors: “We were spending an awful lot of time drafting and also negotiating the lease documents with the other side. And the more time you spend on that, the more it cuts into the firm’s margin. Our clients wanted a slicker journey that allows them to achieve their goal at a realistic price. Everyone wants things done quicker and we decided to look at how innovation could help us along this journey.”
The problem: Finding a fit-for-purpose solution
Like most property lawyers nowadays, when it comes to leases, Thomas Flavell & Sons look to deliver the speed and efficiency their clients demand, rather than being unnecessarily contentious. The landlord and tenant relationship has evolved over the years, and it’s now widely acknowledged that clauses that are heavily biased toward either party are a hindrance to the smooth and speedy process of lease transactions in today’s commercial property market. Thomas Flavell & Sons recognised that delivering a streamlined lease process required the use of automation to drastically cut the drafting time, based on precedents that remove unnecessary negotiation.
Jamie Connolly, Managing Director of Thomas Flavell & Sons Solicitors: “We tried another product prior to using Clarilis’ MCL suite. We felt let down by this solution, as it still involved us having to spend a large amount of time manually drafting. We also found that a lot of the time, the agreements were landlord weighted, and therefore there was an awful lot of amendment required. This actually led to transactions taking longer.”
The solution: A fully automated and maintained ‘balanced’ lease suite
The Clarilis MCL New Lease suite, gives commercial property lawyers a pre-automated, and fully-maintained, suite of high quality standard real estate documentation. It includes all 19 MCL commercial leases and a range of related documents, all drafted from a single, easy-to-use questionnaire. The documents are published and maintained by the MCL committee, which was formed around 10 years ago and includes major landlords, including Landsec, and top tier law firms, such as Gowlings WLG, CMS and Hogan Lovells. Like many law firms, Thomas Flavell & Sons find these standardised leases provided a balanced contractual starting position, thereby reducing the negotiation required.
Jamie Connolly, Managing Director of Thomas Flavell & Sons Solicitors: “We were aware of the MCL and have been for many years, but we’d noticed a lot of firms were adopting these standardised leases rather than other precedents that are available commercially. The MCL lease is a much more reasonable, fairer starting lease and that’s exactly what’s needed to bring down negotiation time and therefore also reduce transaction times.”
Jamie Connolly, Managing Director of Thomas Flavell & Sons Solicitors: “We have numerous fee earners using Clarilis – all give it excellent reviews. Producing the lease and ancillaries in one platform saves us so much time as a practice. The fact that Clarilis also does the housekeeping and keeps the automation up to date means that we don’t have to, which means you’ve got more time to carry out other practice.”
The outcome: More time, more value-add
Thomas Flavell & Sons’ primary goal was to increase the speed they could execute lease agreements for their clients. By both speeding up the drafting process, and reducing the need for unnecessary negotiation, the Clarilis MCL suite unlocks significant time-savings. This enhances client experience and protects profit margins when working with fixed fees. But the benefits have been far wider than just speed and cost. By reducing the burden of drafting and negotiation, the lawyers now have more time to focus on value added work for existing clients, and growing new revenue for the firm’s real estate practice.
Jamie Connolly, Managing Director of Thomas Flavell & Sons Solicitors: “We found the Clarilis lease automation has dramatically reduced the initial time it takes us to prepare the draft lease and send out the ancillaries to other solicitors. And this has also reduced the actual transaction time, which means that we can take on more matters.”
