Read time 4 minEvery law firm may not have a dedicated leasing team to handle all things related to commercial lease.
That said, lease abstracts play a critical role in managing real estate investments, acquisitions and even litigations.
The Importance of Lease Abstraction for Law Firms
These summaries provide key business, financial and legal data extracted as per due diligence requirements and standards. While gleaning information using lease abstracts is easy and simple, the process of lease abstraction is hardly so.
It entails poring over lengthy and voluminous lease agreements, analyzing the data, extracting key information, and summarizing it in a user-friendly format. The entire process is tedious, complex, time consuming and above all requires dedicated time and resources with in-depth understanding of commercial lease agreements.
This is where professional lease abstraction services come in, offering specialized support to ensure data is captured accurately, uniformly, and efficiently.
Considering these challenges, it isn’t surprising why lease abstraction, as a service, is increasingly being outsourced by real estate companies to specialized third party service providers. Law firms can also adopt this approach to gain several advantages. Top three benefits include:
Trained and dedicated talent pool
By outsourcing lease abstraction law firms can free up their in-house resources time and optimize utilization and focus on more pressing, critical, and strategic work. By partnering with professional services, you gain access to individuals with necessary skill, knowledge, and training.
This also helps you avoid investing in hiring and training resources to get this work done. Outsourcing works as an extended administrative arm of your firm providing professional and timely services without the added burden of continuously investing, managing, and maintaining resources in-house.
Labor arbitrage
An age old advantage of outsourcing services. While today outsourcing lease abstract offers way more than simple cost savings, it still remains one of the top reasons why companies choose to outsource. Seeing as how every organization is always trying to optimize cost, outsourcing offers substantial cost benefits.
Outsourcing lease abstracts is a strategic way to cut costs while maintaining high-quality output.
You still get access to a dedicated team of trained lease abstracters when you outsource it to a third party service provider. But you can get this done at a fraction of a cost than what you would invest in setting up the same team in-house, thus saving substantial cost.
High accuracy and data integrity
Since outsourcing model is based on ensuring third-party providers achieve a certain level of accuracy across every service level agreement (SLA) in order for engagement to continue and be profitable, the accountability is extremely high. Every transaction is tracked, monitored, and closely checked using stringent practices of quality assurance to ensure every parameter is met.
By outsourcing law firms can rely on the information in lease abstracts are up-to-date and transparent with high level of accuracy. Since this is their core business, professional services providers have robust and stringent data privacy and integrity policies and practices that guarantee complete data protection.
When Should Law Firms Consider Outsourcing Lease Abstraction?
Law firms should consider outsourcing lease abstraction services in several key scenarios where accuracy, efficiency, and speed are critical:
- Large-scale lease portfolio reviews for corporate clients
- Mergers & acquisitions (M&A) requiring thorough lease due diligence
- Litigation support involving complex lease agreements
- Seasonal workload spikes or short-staffed teams needing quick turnaround
- New practice areas or real estate advisory services where internal capacity is limited
Outsourcing in these situations helps reduce turnaround time, mitigate risks, and ensure reliable, standardized output
Why Springbord?
Springbord has been a partner of choice for several global leading real estate companies. We have been assisting our clients with timely and accurate commercial lease abstracts for years. Our team of lease experts brings years of experience, knowledge about commercial lease types, and are aware of industry best practices.
Connect with us with any queries you may have about any type and scale of lease abstracts and we will be happy to discuss.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Why should law firms consider outsourcing lease abstraction?
Outsourcing lease abstraction helps law firms optimize internal resources, reduce operational costs, and access a trained talent pool without the need to hire and manage in-house teams.
2. How does outsourcing lease abstraction ensure accuracy?
Outsourced providers follow strict quality control protocols and work under performance-based SLAs. Each abstract is reviewed and validated for accuracy and compliance, ensuring reliable results.
3. What are the cost benefits of outsourcing lease abstraction?
Outsourcing provides significant cost savings compared to building an in-house team. You get access to skilled abstractors at a fraction of the cost, enabling labor arbitrage without compromising quality.
4. What types of lease documents can be abstracted?
Providers typically handle various lease types including retail, office, industrial, ground leases, and amendments, ensuring comprehensive coverage for legal and real estate clients.
5. Can lease abstraction services be tailored to meet specific formatting needs?
Yes. Most service providers offer fully customizable abstraction templates that align with your firm’s documentation format, client preferences, or compliance checklists.
6. How do lease abstraction service providers protect confidential legal information?
They implement enterprise-grade data security protocols, including secure FTP, encryption, access restrictions, and NDAs to ensure confidentiality and data integrity at every stage.
7. How fast is the turnaround for outsourced lease abstraction?
Turnaround times vary based on volume and complexity, but many providers offer expedited services and can scale quickly to meet deadlines during high-demand periods such as M&A or litigation prep.
