“Juro’s interface is well-designed, intuitive and just makes sense”

A scalable, off-the-shelf system for contracts

Habito is a digital mortgage broker and lender that modernizes the mortgage application and lending process. Habito was founded in 2016, and has since launched Habito Go and Habito Plus to help homebuyers with paperwork, lending agreements, solicitors, property surveys and additional legal work.

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The challenge: a hands-on legal process

Habito handled a variety of contracts; from commercial contracts in the partnerships team to employment contracts in HR. The end-to-end workflow was time-consuming, and always involved a member of the legal team leading, negotiating and reviewing the document with other teams.

“Currently there are four lawyers in our legal function. It’s always someone from our team directly affected by this - an NDA can get signed in hours or at most, days, but a longer, more complex agreement could be a massive time drain to negotiate,” explained Rohan Paramesh, Habito’s general counsel.

As the business continued its rapid growth, it became clear that this hand-holding legal process would not scale.

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There’s a general feeling of reassurance having Juro in place, knowing we have a system of record that drives positive behaviour in the business

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The requirements: what did Habito need?

Over the course of Habito’s growth the legal function became more agile, developing and distributing a wide range of contract templates. Rohan wanted to implement a solution that would allow various teams to self-serve from templates, reducing legal’s involvement with negotiations on high-volume, low-complexity agreements, and making the overall system more efficient and collaborative.

“We wanted to continue our use of eSignature alongside templating,” Rohan said. “We wanted a contract automation system that would allow the wider business to pull contracts off the shelf quicker, with people outside of legal finding it easy to engage with and use.

It was also important that the system was well-designed and intuitive: “functionality and usability is in Habito’s DNA, as a business. It’s important for us to place the user interface at the heart of the purpose. We definitely wanted a tool that had the same priorities.”

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The solution: intuitive, scalable contract automation

In October 2019, Habito decided to implement Juro to take the heat off their legal team and empower other teams to generate contracts from templates. After kick-off meetings with Juro’s customer success and sales teams, Habito began using Juro and getting value within a few weeks

• ‍Legal tech for everyone: “Juro has impacted people outside of the legal team and allowed them to engage with contracts. I like how Juro productizes the way we think about contracts and encourages teams to make the process easier using the templating feature. It encourages the automation of simpler tasks.”
• Ready to scale: as the quantity and variety of contracts increase, Juro’s templating feature allows Habito to scale without friction - “if you’re growing like Habito is, you see contracts in numbers. We never have just one of anything! There’s a general feeling of reassurance having Juro in place, knowing we have a system of record that drives positive behaviour in the business.”
• A user-focused interface: “Juro’s interface is well-designed, intuitive and just makes sense. A lot of clutter and ‘noise’ is removed in comparison to what I would imagine in many legal tech solutions. I like the simplicity of Juro and the intuitive nature was a really important factor.”

There’s no disconnect between Juro and its customers; they’re always in touch about updates on the product roadmap, as opposed to a company offering a solution and telling its customers to take it or leave it

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The results: automated, accessible contracts

Habito wanted a contract automation system that would ease the burden off the legal team by automating the process and allowing other teams to create their own contracts. Another prerequisite was user interface, which had to be clean and simple to use and engage with. As Habito continued to scale, Rohan knew that a templating feature would be necessary to accommodate the range of contracts handled by the wider business.

Since implementing Juro, the benefits have had a positive impact on legal and beyond. “People at Habito really got on board with the platform and the design-focused nature of it,” Rohan said.

“There’s no disconnect between Juro and its customers; I like the fact that they’re always in touch about current features and updates on the product roadmap, as opposed to a company offering a solution and telling its customers to ‘take it or leave it’. It’s a massive plus point, and I would absolutely recommend Juro.”