Bloomberg BNA just announced the launch of Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions, a new web-based product that includes a patented technology-driven drafting workflow tool, analytics powered by Bloomberg’s proprietary financial databases, the industry’s most trusted set of news publications, and a deep set of primary resources, secondary materials and practical guidance. This new offering instantly allows corporate lawyers to know what deal terms are “market standard.”
Putting “Big Data” to practical use, Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions searches over one million documents, comparing agreements and clauses to yield “market standard” language. Just as searchable databases of case law revolutionized the way litigators approached their work 30 years ago, Bloomberg is now saying this is the next big thing in legal tech and that Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions is set to dramatically change the workflow for transactional lawyers.
“For decades, corporate lawyers have been drafting and negotiating deal terms in relative darkness,” said David Perla, President of Bloomberg Law & Bloomberg BNA’s Legal Division. “Without clear knowledge of ‘market standards,’ protracted negotiations have become the norm; inefficient client service and less-than-optimal agreements, the result. With Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions, lawyers can instantly access the language that is most current, quickly putting an end to any sort of boardroom blustering. This addition to Bloomberg Law levels the playing field for all law firms, while allowing lawyers and their clients to close deals more efficiently.”
Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions features first-of-its-kind technology with a clean interface and intuitive workflow. Consistent with its overall commitment to providing ongoing enhancements to its clients, Bloomberg BNA is offering Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions to its current Bloomberg Law customers at no cost.
“We’ve developed an all-in-one solution that allows transactional lawyers to quickly draft, negotiate, and finalize a wide variety of agreements,” said Carl Sussman, Commercial Product Director for Bloomberg Law. “The product’s real power is the way it synthesizes over a million documents and returns results that are easily incorporated into a deal document. This is what leveraging big data is all about and where we clearly differentiate ourselves from the competition.”
“This will raise market intelligence to a new level, and make it available to everyone on an equal basis,” adds Mitchell Presser, head of the U.S. M&A practice at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. “The technology will also drive a lot of efficiency in the negotiating process.”
Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions features an array of tools, including:
Patented Technology. Draft Analyzer: a one-of-a-kind analytic technology that helps transactional attorneys instantly find precedents, streamline drafting, and better protect clients. Practitioners can use language from Bloomberg BNA’s extensive collection of transactional precedents or input their own language, and, with a single click, compare it paragraph-by-paragraph to market-tested standards derived from over a million other agreements.
Bloomberg Data & Tools. Deal Analytics: this workflow tool, which provides best-in-class deal and financial data from Bloomberg, enables attorneys to search through nearly half-a-million public and private M&A deals, and filter by deal points including deal size, industry, advisors, advisory fees, and termination fees. With access to this robust Bloomberg data, attorneys can get a more comprehensive picture of their market.
Practical Guidance. In Practice: this repository offers step-by-step guidance to help attorneys through the transaction process with checklists, timelines, sample forms, documents and clauses.
For more information on Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions and to request a free trial, visit HERE. For existing Bloomberg Law subscribers, this product can be accessed free-of-charge with their subscription.
About Bloomberg BNA
Bloomberg BNA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bloomberg, is a leading source of legal, regulatory, and business information for professionals. Its network of more than 2,500 reporters, correspondents, and leading practitioners delivers expert analysis, news, practice tools, and guidance — the information that matters most to professionals. Bloomberg BNA’s authoritative coverage spans a full range of legal practice areas, including tax & accounting, labor & employment, intellectual property, banking & securities, employee benefits, health care, privacy & data security, human resources, and environment, health & safety.
About David Perla
David Perla, Bloomberg Law’s new President, was brought to Bloomberg within the past year to jump start the company’s legal technology play. Perla is a legal tech pioneer, having founded Pangea3, an early ediscovery company that he sold to Thomson Reuters. Bloomberg Law: Corporate Transactions is one of his first major efforts at Bloomberg.
COMMENT: They’ve been threatening it for a long time but it looks like Bloomberg is now ready to go head-to-head with LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and particularly Thomson Reuters’ PLC/Practical Law division. We’ve also more background information here Bloomberg Law Corporate Transactions Brochure PDF and here Bloomberg Law Corporate Transactions Quick Reference Card