The COVID-19 pandemic may have more legal departments turning to contract tech for help navigating force majeure clauses or potential opportunities for savings. But don’t count on software being swapped for human beings anytime soon. Still, while contract tech may not be reducing the need for legal department head count, it could be influencing the types of skills employers are seeking out.

Dan Broderick, co-founder of the AI-based contract review company Blackboiler, argued for the need of a triumvirate of people, process and technology to solve contract challenges,  possibly due to their still being limits as to what the final item on that list can accomplish. For example, AI contract review software can review an organization’s real estate leases for force majeure clauses or pandemic exemptions, but there may be other relevant yet obscure language buried inside of the contract that requires a human’s capacity to extrapolate and interpret.