What the work remembers
Inside an organization, memories live in many places: the repository, the playbook, the inbox, and its people. Technology can only work from what it can read, so most of that memory has to be brought in before it can be used. Once it is in, the work in front of the technology decides which memory it draws on, and as whom.
Memory lives in many places, and technology can read from few of them
The repository holds what was signed and the playbook holds what the department will accept. What got conceded is in the inbox, the fact that an exception was granted is in the approval record, and the reason it was granted is in a senior lawyer's head. What the company can risk this quarter, and what it needs closed by when, sits with the people running the business. For technology to carry more of the agreement work, that memory has to come out of where it sits and into a form it can read, and plenty of companies are working on that from different directions: platforms pull terms out of signed documents, teams write their playbooks as rules, assistants keep what you tell them, and drafting tools learn positions by watching.
What was signed
Every executed agreement and amendment, with the terms pulled out of it. Technology can read this today, and most of the work so far has gone here.
What the department will accept
Positions, fallbacks, walk-aways, most of them in a document and some in a senior lawyer's head. The reasons behind them are rarely written down.
The reasons and the results
Why this deal mattered, what got conceded and what it bought, why an exception got a yes, whether the deal held up once it was live, and what the business can risk this quarter. Ask about any of it and you get a name.
Each of those brings in one kind of memory from one place. How far the technology can go depends on how much of the memory gets brought in, and whether a person can read it afterwards. It takes a step when the memory behind that step is in a form it can read and someone can show it got the step right. So what gets brought in is a step a lawyer stops touching, and what stays in someone's head keeps that step with the person.
Four ways memory gets into the technology
Tell it
Write the positions as rules.
Every tool. This is the playbook, written so technology can read it.
A rule with no reason attached decays into a rule nobody can maintain, so each position needs its author, its date, and its why.
Show it
Correct its draft and keep the correction.
A "remember this" command on most tools. Whether an ordinary edit is also kept, no tool says.
A correction is cheap and carries no reason, so ask for the reason while the correction is being made, or it never gets written down.
Fill it in
Type the why, the concession, the exception, and the outcome into a field.
Nothing that reads it back. The free-text box on the exception form gets read once, by a person.
The field takes an afternoon. The habit takes a year, and needs an owner, a shared vocabulary, and rules for what gets recorded and who can see it.
Let it watch
The technology infers what you prefer from what you do.
Most pitches that say "learns how you work" mean this.
The technology picks up your ratified positions and your bad habits with the same appetite, keeps no record of which one fired, and gets no reason with any of it, because you never gave one. What it picked up carries no signature and no expiry date.
Memory comes in three levels: the lawyer, the department, and the company
Some memories matter at one level only. How a lawyer works with the playbook is hers. Which playbook runs, when it applies, and the exceptions granted under it matter to her and to the department. An exception to a playbook position that finance or compliance needs to know about matters across the company. A single way of working can get captured at all three levels, at one, or at two, and the work in front of the technology decides which memory it draws on.
How she works with the playbook
How she drafts, the corrections she has made and the reasons she gave, and what she knows about this counterparty from the last three rounds.
Used when the technology drafts her document or runs her negotiation.
Which playbook runs, and when
The positions, fallbacks, and walk-aways, when each applies, and the exceptions granted under them, each with an author, a date, and a reason.
Used when the technology checks a draft against the playbook, whoever the lawyer is.
What other teams need to know
The exceptions to playbook positions that finance, compliance, or the business has to know about, and the priorities behind them: how much risk the company will take this quarter, and what it needs closed by when.
Used when the question is whether something can go out at all.