Clause teardown, June 9, 2025
Clause teardown: assignment and novation
The problem
Every review team we work with has a version of this problem. Assignment and novation rarely announces itself.
In testing, the gap between a fast pass and a careful pass was not accuracy on the central question. It was whether the reviewer noticed the interaction with an adjacent provision.
What we do about it
The register is the deliverable. A finding without an owner and a date is an observation, not a control.
In the current build this runs as part of the standard pass, so it applies to every document in the set rather than only the ones someone thought to check.
Where it breaks
Scanned originals with poor image quality remain the weakest input. So do agreements that were assembled from three precedents and never reconciled, which is common in long-lived supplier relationships.
If you take one thing from this, make it the habit of checking the adjacent provision before you sign off the clause in front of you.
Working notes from the Lawrs team. General information about legal technology and practice, not legal advice.