Definely Draft & Proof now understand Swedish!

We're thrilled to unveil our all-new Swedish language edition of Definely Draft and Definely Proof —the one-click solution for drafting and reviewing legal documents. 

Our customers love Definely Draft and Proof, but up until now they've only worked with contracts in English, so we teamed up with law firm DLA Piper in Sweden to develop a version that is compatible with Swedish, and it's with immense pride that we launch this powerful new feature.

“Finding, adopting and developing tools and processes that can help our lawyers and business professionals succeed is at the heart of what we do in the LegalTech team at DLA Piper in Sweden. As such we are always on the lookout for vendors and suppliers that can help us alleviate some of our users' frustrations and pain points in the organisation – bonus points if that vendor is open to developing its product together with us!” - Malin Männikkö, Legal Tech Associate at DLA Piper in Sweden

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How and why did the collaboration come about?

Malin: Definely came onto our radar from the best possible place: our lawyers. They had seen the product on the market and asked us to take a look. Definely in turn solves a lot of small, annoying and time-consuming pain points for our users and we were keen to adopt a tool that had the features Definely brought to the table. 

After some additional research, we concluded that no product on the market really seemed to match Definely. There was of course that one caveat: it didn't work in Swedish. Even though a lot of our work is conducted in English, about half is in Swedish. So we really needed a product that could help our users in Swedish too. 

Luckily for us – Definely said let's go for it, and by doing that, Definely checked a crucial box for us: the willingness to develop the tool together with us.

How was the product developed?

Malin: I have to start by saying that I'm very impressed with the Definely team’s approach to the development of the Swedish language – especially considering that no one on the Development or Customer Success teams speak Swedish. 

From the start we had a great collaboration and shared whatever knowledge we could about Swedish grammar, how the language is structured, how we typically define words in legal text in Swedish etc. 

In hindsight, it's very impressive to think that we supplied Definely with a few Swedish documents, a few Excel sheets worth of translations and a crash course in Swedish grammar and we ended up with a product working essentially equivalent to Definely's original English build.

How did Definely deliver on that?

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Maryam: Definely gathered information from DLA Piper in Sweden from the moment they became a customer because our product team wanted to be responsive in quickly devising project timelines and a final deadline for the summer of 2023. A nimble, dedicated core project team was formed, a regular cadence of communication with the customer was established and resources to streamline collaboration on crucial feedback points were created. 

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These three approaches were integral; they ensured that our developers were progressing in the right direction and that the customer had a driving impact on building the final product. Definely's core team also included an exceptional Product Manager. This individual served as a vital link between the core team's communication and Definely's senior developers, who were diligently engaged in constructing product functionalities.

Why did Definely want to accommodate?

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Maryam: Our partnership with DLA Piper in Sweden has been a pivotal force driving this collaboration, fostering mutual growth. Inevitably, the Swedish markets’ sheer significance and potential fueled our determination to bring Definely Draft to this linguistic landscape. Yet, at the heart of it all lies our belief that true innovation and progress are most impactful when they are born out of collaboration, understanding, and a shared vision.

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DLA Piper in Sweden were determined to become the first law firm to harness a tool like Definely in the Swedish language, and we were just as determined to help them deliver on this objective. 

How was success achieved?

Malin: Iteration, iteration and iteration. 

We worked with several versions of the product, testing it in between and having weekly meetings about the hurdles, the progress and our wish list. It was also necessary that we set up specific and clear milestones and timelines, and all worked together to achieve them.

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It's worth noting though that perfection was never the goal, instead we wanted to create a product good enough for initial testing, an iterative and better one for further large-scale testing and finally a production-ready, not-yet-perfect version to have in our live environment for everyone to test and provide us with further feedback on.

What impact does this Swedish build have on your lawyers and clients?

Malin: Fundamentally, this is the key – through a Swedish build we are able to use Definely on a majority of our documentation, from agreements to memos to letters, which increases the overall quality of our products, minimises human errors and supports us in our further legal tech pipeline. We are the first law firm in the Swedish market with a product that can do what Definely does in Swedish, and we hope this becomes a must-have product for all lawyers out there.

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The Swedish language marks the first language variant of Definely Draft and Proof, but it certainly won’t be the last. Want to learn more about Definely and this collaboration? Reach out to the team here.

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