My computer might have broadband but my brain is still on dial-up

I was chatting with a partner of mine last week who has been in practice for nearly 40 years. He made a comment which highlights a major issue facing lawyers the world over:

"Whilst the speed with which we can send and receive documents has increased thanks to the internet, the speed with which we can review them has not."

We now live in an instant society. Everything is "on-demand". Modern technology has allowed us to perform many more tasks in a much shorter space of time. Financial calculations which took hours 30 years' ago can now be done in seconds. However, one thing has not changed - the human mind cannot go through its thought processes any quicker. Despite what the Government might want us to believe, more A's at A-Levels does not mean the next generation are all super-computers.
However, it is a fact of life that clients expect that a document can be 'turned' quicker now than 30 years' ago. True, we get it quicker. True we can print it out quicker. True it is easier to create mark-ups and identify changes. However these are all time saving factors in terms of delivery and readability. It still takes the same length of time to read, digest and consider the implications of any given clause or amendment.
Modern technology is also one of the causes of another factor which affects documents of today - length. @LegalBizzle has often tweeted regarding the "mega-contract" which in his line of work does not surprise me. But even in Real Estate, contracts continue to get longer. 30 years ago the average lease was probably 10 or 15 pages maximum. Today it would be 50 pages minimum. Just reading it takes 5 times longer, never mind amending it.
So where do we go from here? Well forget about asking clients to relax.  They are under pressure internally to get the deal done and, frankly, they pay us to transact the deal for them.  But there are things that lawyers can do for themselves and here are my suggestions:

• Use plain english - too many contracts I come across continue to use complex terms for no reason other than to appear intelligent.  However, this inevitably increases the review time and the negotiation time.  Why are we so scared of using language which is intelligible to the average man on the street?
• Use punctuation - I cannot believe that there are still lawyers who believe that not using punctuation assists in interpretation.  Not using punctuation results in multiple re-reads of the same paragraph simply to grasp what it is trying to say.
• Use short sentences - there are no prizes for drafting the longest sentence in the world.  Each sentence should be trying to say one thing.  If it has to say more than one thing at least break it down using sub-clauses so that the drafting visually reflects the thought process.  This also means that any amendment can be more easily understood.
• Be collaborative - as per my previous post on the role of a transactional lawyer, our clients are paying us to get the deal done.  In most cases they view the other party as a partner in some shape or form and their aim is not to shaft them.  Therefore, drafting should be balanced and not seek to screw the other side.  If you adopt an unbalanced approach the other side will probably (i) spot the try-on anyway and (ii) adopt a similar approach resulting in entrenchment and the deal stalling.  A balanced draft is not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of comprehension and commercial nous.

We cannot turn the clock back to a time before everything became such a rush and we are not going to be able to act as if the time pressure does not exist.  So, if we are to avoid all checking in to the nearest facility for stress affected lawyers, we must find ways to reduce the time in negotiating documents.  There will always be negotiation but we should make sure that it is as straight forward and painless as possible.