In the fast-moving world of real estate, slow legal can kill a deal.
Traditionally, real estate professionals have control over every aspect of a deal until it goes into the black box of legal; after that, they have to trust their lawyers to move fast enough to keep the deal alive. We sat down with the real estate lawyers behind SeedJura, the legal solutions platform that’s bringing this 18th Century industry into the modern day, to learn how RE professionals can close deals faster by using the right blend of technology and legal talent to take control of this archaic process.
What’s really behind the legal drag
After dozens of years representing real estate clients, Geneve DuBois and Tony Alfonso, the co-founders of SeedJura, identified the fundamental reasons behind the legal drag.
First and foremost, lawyers are trained to have a zero-risk mindset, which can create issues in a process that is built around reaching a compromise with which both parties are happy.
“The goal of lawyers on either side is to bring the risk for their client down to zero,” says DuBois. “This mindset leads to extreme starting positions, and bridging the gap then takes time, effort and many rounds of back-and-forth.”
Another issue that bogs down real estate deals is letting legal dictate terms that could be agreed upon by the parties before turning the process over to lawyers. Most business professionals only negotiate a few headline terms, like price, deposit, due diligence and closing date, then hand off the rest to their lawyers.
“Businesspeople can talk to each other without lawyers,” says DuBois. “Clients already know what representations and warranties are, but lawyers don’t create processes that empower the business side to take the lead on these decisions. The key is to provide a pre-designed legal framework allowing clients to efficiently negotiate all of the essential terms upfront with minimal lawyers’ involvement.”
These hurdles create roadblocks to closing a deal, not only incurring unnecessary legal fees but risking losing momentum and allowing the deal to fall apart altogether.
Taking control of legal
To speed up legal, real estate businesses need to take control with specific processes. The results can be remarkable: Alfonso describes that clients who use SeedJura’s legal solutions see the purchase and sale agreement process drop from two months to just three weeks. Entire deal timelines can be cut from six months to under three.
“To speed up their deal cycle, businesses either need to adopt legal solutions like SeedJura’s—built specifically to align legal with deal speed—or they need to build their own,” explains Alfonso. “It requires a fundamental shift.”
Building the right processes is not simple.
“You need experienced lawyers who understand real estate and can build processes, working hand-in-hand with technologists who know how to integrate the right tools into this framework,” says Alfonso. “Without that balance, you’re not just stuck in the old system—you might end up with something worse. More work. More risk. More drag.”
Can’t AI just do it?
DuBois and Alfonso are often asked about generative AI, and when the much-hyped tech can be deployed to solve these problems.
“It’s nowhere close to replacing lawyers or covering the full legal needs of real estate businesses,” explains Alfonso. “Technology is a tool, not the solution on its own. Clients want solutions, not more tools.”
Real estate is a human endeavor that demands precision and predictable results. Closing real estate deals is more than transferring title or drafting documents; it requires meeting the needs of human buyers, sellers, investors, lenders and brokers at every step.
“Pushing a deal over the finish line is often more of an art than a science,” says Alfonso. “At SeedJura, we automate what can be automated, freeing legal and business teams to focus on the decisions and actions that actually close deals. And what can be automated continues to grow as stakeholders adapt and integrate more and more automation into the process.”
AI and other emergent technologies are an important part of speeding up the legal process when it comes to the real estate business, but experts must guide the creation and deployment of these tools for a number of reasons.
“You need to design these processes to work alongside and take advantage of human expertise, not go around it,” says DuBois. “The new tools must fit into a well-planned legal process and protect attorney-client privilege, and they have to be built with the right ingredients, those hidden solutions that address the real reasons legal slows deals down in the first place.”
Owning the legal process, one step at a time
The key insight is that legal is more than just paperwork: it’s a lever that real estate businesses can pull to speed up their deal cycle. And if they don’t pull that lever, their competition will.
“Business models have evolved. Markets are faster. Deals are more complex,” says Alfonso. “If legal doesn’t evolve with it, it’s not just behind—it’s in the way.”
Of course, not every company is ready to jump in with both feet and adopt an entire new legal solution on day one. Alfonso recommends that every real estate business “start small”.
“Take one part of the legal process, like the purchase and sale agreement, and own it,” he advises. “Ask your lawyers which terms can be negotiated upfront. Make them teach you what those terms actually mean and what risks they carry. Pay for their time not just to draft, but to build a repeatable process on that one document you can use in every deal. Then implement it, tweak it, and make it better over time.”
Legal doesn’t have to be the slowest, most unpredictable part of the deal; it should be a strategic driver of speed, clarity and control. But that only happens when businesses stop treating legal as a black box and start taking control and managing it like a core part of their deal process.
AI alone won’t fix it. Traditional law firms won’t change it. SeedJura is proving that there’s a better way: by putting the business back in charge.
Curious how SeedJura can bring your business processes into the 21st Century? Visit their website.