Overview
What is the Accord Project?
Accord Project is an open source, non-profit initiative aimed at transforming contract management and contract automation by digitizing contracts. It provides an open, standardized format for Smart Legal Contracts.
The Accord Project defines a notion of a legal template with associated computing logic which is expressive, open-source, and portable. Accord Project templates are similar to a clause or contract template in any document format, but they can be read, interpreted, and run by a computer.
Why is the Accord Project relevant?
The Accord Project provides a universal format for smart legal contracts, and this format is embodied in a variety of open source projects that comprise the Accord Project technology stack. Input from businesses, lawyers and developers is crucial for the Accord Project.
For Businesses
Contracting is undergoing a digital transformation driven by a need to deliver customer-centric legal and business solutions faster, and at lower cost. This imperative is fueling the adoption of a broad range of new technologies to improve the efficiency of drafting, managing, and executing legal contracting operations; the Accord Project is proud to be part of that movement.
The Accord Project provides a Smart Contract that does not depend on a blockchain, that can integrate text and data and that can continue operating over its lifespan. The Accord Project smart contract can integrate with your technology platforms and become part of you digital infrastructure.
In addition, contributions from businesses are crucial for the development of the Accord Project. The expertise of stakeholders, such as business professionals and attorneys, is invaluable in improving the functionality and content of the Accord Project's codebase and specifications, to ensure that the templates meet real-world business requirements.
If this interests you, please visit our Lifecycle and Industry Working Groups page for more information.
For Lawyers
The Legal world is changing and Legal Tech is growing into a billion dollar industry. The modern lawyer has to be at home in the digital world. Law Schools now teach courses in coding for lawyers, computational law, blockchain and artificial intelligence. Legal Hackers is a world wide movement uniting lawyers across the world in a shared passion for law and technology. Lawyers need to move beyond the the written word on paper.
The template in an Accord Project Contract is pure legal text that can be drafted by lawyers and interpreted by courts. An existing contract can easily be transformed into a template by adding data points between curly braces that represent the Concerto model and Ergo logic can be added as an integral part of the contract. The template language is subject to judicial interpretation and the Concerto model and Ergo logic can be interpreted by a computer creating a bridge between the two worlds.
As a lawyer, contributing to the Accord Project would be a great opportunity to learn about smart legal contracts. Through the Accord Project, you can understand the foundations of open source technologies and learn how to develop smart agreements.
If your organization wants to become a member of the Accord Project, please join our community.
For Developers
The Accord Project provides a universal format for smart legal contracts, and this format is embodied in a variety of open source projects that comprise the Accord Project technology stack. The Accord Project is an open source project and welcomes contributions from anyone.
The Accord Project is developing tools including a Visual Studio Code plugin, React based web components and a command line interface for working with Accord Project Contracts. You can integrate contracts into existing applications, create new applications or simply assist lawyers with developing applications with the Ergo language.
There is a welcoming community on Slack that is eager to help. Join our Community
About this documentation
If you are new to Accord Project, you may want to first read about the notion of Smart Legal Contracts and about Accord Project Templates. We also recommend taking the Online Tour.
To start using Accord Project templates, follow the Install Cicero instructions in the Getting Started Section of the documentation.
You can find in-depth guides for the different components of a template in the Template Guides part of the documentation:
- Learn how to write contract or template text in the Markdown Text Guide
- Learn how to design your data model in the Concerto Model Guide
- Learn how to write smart contract logic in the Ergo Logic Guide
Finally, the documentation includes several step by step Tutorials and some reference information (for APIs, command-line tools, etc.) can be found in the Reference Manual.