My name is Charles Drayson. I am here to contribute ideas, guidance and news to make Legito work for you.

I’ve been a lawyer for nearly 30 years in the UK, but I’ve also worked extensively in other countries (including the US). I’ve worked for two of the world’s largest global law firms and in the legal teams of several large corporates. I spent some time seconded to the document automation team of a well-known bank, in London.

Today, I still do some legal work for a national law firm, but my main role is Commercial Director for a software company. I guess you could say my role at Legito is a side-hustle. I’m taking on the role because document automation has been so impactful for me and because I get to work with team members at Legito who I have known for years, even before Legito started. I want to help others get the same boost from technology in the otherwise cumbersome world of creating and managing documents.

About 20 years ago, I tried to persuade my law firm to use a document automation tool to help us get through the mountain of work from the dot-com boom. It didn’t last (neither the dot-com boom nor my attempts at getting a law firm to invest in automation). In those days, we charged for our work using hourly rates. Guess what automation would have done.

Several years on, I became General Counsel for an organisation that provided outsourced payroll and HR services. I became responsible for generating 100+ contracts a month for business-critical services. I didn’t have to worry about reaching billing targets, but I did need to get the work done. Our services were diverse, complex and tended to necessitate contracts that were hard to standardise and invariably negotiated. That’s when I met Gary Eunson (now Legito, but then with HotDocs, one of the few document automation tools available then). I got a trial and built a suite of templates that we used for nearly 15 years. We even won an award: the ‘Legal IT Award for Mitigating Risk Through the Use of IT’. I was hooked. I subsequently used document automation for numerous clients when I returned to working for law firms. 

I have created thousands of pages of document templates (mostly contracts, but not just contracts) and deployed them for organisations that are global brands (sorry, I’m not allowed to name many of them). Along the way, I learned a lot about making document technology work, but I also learned how to make it effective, compelling and useful for colleagues who use the templates. I discovered lots of unintended consequences. I met people who declared that automation is great, but it’s not suitable for their work. I met people who said their expertise could never be deployed through automation. Some of them were correct. The rest are missing out on the pleasure that comes from using your intelligence to make technology augment and scale your work. 

I still get a kick from seeing contracts, which I recognise from my drafting, that have been created, signed and commercially operated without any of my time. I get to do the interesting, creative work replacing much of the tedious (and error-prone) cut-and-paste document drafting that has barely changed since Windows brought CTRL C and CTRL V to Word.

I look forward to sharing more, learning more, and hearing more in my time with Legito. I hope to get to know many Legito users so you can hear about your work too. You can reach me at charles@legito.com.

My name is Charles Drayson. I am here to contribute ideas, guidance and news to make Legito work for you.

I’ve been a lawyer for nearly 30 years in the UK, but I’ve also worked extensively in other countries (including the US). I’ve worked for two of the world’s largest global law firms and in the legal teams of several large corporates. I spent some time seconded to the document automation team of a well-known bank, in London.

Today, I still do some legal work for a national law firm, but my main role is Commercial Director for a software company. I guess you could say my role at Legito is a side-hustle. I’m taking on the role because document automation has been so impactful for me and because I get to work with team members at Legito who I have known for years, even before Legito started. I want to help others get the same boost from technology in the otherwise cumbersome world of creating and managing documents.

About 20 years ago, I tried to persuade my law firm to use a document automation tool to help us get through the mountain of work from the dot-com boom. It didn’t last (neither the dot-com boom nor my attempts at getting a law firm to invest in automation). In those days, we charged for our work using hourly rates. Guess what automation would have done.

Several years on, I became General Counsel for an organisation that provided outsourced payroll and HR services. I became responsible for generating 100+ contracts a month for business-critical services. I didn’t have to worry about reaching billing targets, but I did need to get the work done. Our services were diverse, complex and tended to necessitate contracts that were hard to standardise and invariably negotiated. That’s when I met Gary Eunson (now Legito, but then with HotDocs, one of the few document automation tools available then). I got a trial and built a suite of templates that we used for nearly 15 years. We even won an award: the ‘Legal IT Award for Mitigating Risk Through the Use of IT’. I was hooked. I subsequently used document automation for numerous clients when I returned to working for law firms. 

I have created thousands of pages of document templates (mostly contracts, but not just contracts) and deployed them for organisations that are global brands (sorry, I’m not allowed to name many of them). Along the way, I learned a lot about making document technology work, but I also learned how to make it effective, compelling and useful for colleagues who use the templates. I discovered lots of unintended consequences. I met people who declared that automation is great, but it’s not suitable for their work. I met people who said their expertise could never be deployed through automation. Some of them were correct. The rest are missing out on the pleasure that comes from using your intelligence to make technology augment and scale your work. 

I still get a kick from seeing contracts, which I recognise from my drafting, that have been created, signed and commercially operated without any of my time. I get to do the interesting, creative work replacing much of the tedious (and error-prone) cut-and-paste document drafting that has barely changed since Windows brought CTRL C and CTRL V to Word.

I look forward to sharing more, learning more, and hearing more in my time with Legito. I hope to get to know many Legito users so you can hear about your work too. You can reach me at charles@legito.com.