I suspect that many who work with contracts are fine with being a copy-and-paste monkey, because that spares you much of the work involved in deciding what the deal should look like. The more you can rely on choices made in the precedent contracts or templates you use, the less thinking you have to do.
I’ve encountered that mindset in some people to whom I mention our new service agreement template: “Can it create on its own a contract that’s suitable for my purposes? Like, you know, AI does?” The answer is, No, it can’t, and intentionally so.
We could have structured the template so that if you say you’re completing the interview from the perspective of the provider, you’d be presented only with pro-provider options. That’s too one-sided to work well consistently, if at all. It’s best to have a sense of the different options and what their implications are.
Unless you’re willing to use a standard form (if one exists), someone has to devote thought to making sure the contract for a new deal reflects your interests. If you don’t want to do that thinking, get someone else to do it.
Deals are often complex, and it follows that contracts are too—even ones that are clear, concise, and relevant. Even though our template asks you questions relating to, say, intellectual property and insurance in a way that makes sense and offers you pertinent guidance, you might not be able to answer those questions without additional help. That just the way things go.
