Case Study
Aeon Case Study – HAL JDL Team – Higier, Allen & Lautin, P.C. | Lender-Side CRE Finance Execution
Overview – The HAL JDL Team at Higier, Allen & Lautin, P.C. is a commercial real estate finance practice representing lenders. The team operates in a high-volume, process-driven environment where speed, consistency, and document accuracy directly affect deal outcomes.
Aeon has been deployed across the entire team to improve execution across five core, high-impact workflows:
- Loan Document Drafting (from Credit Memos)
- Deal Tracking & Management
- Title Review
- Credit Memo Comparison (Change Detection)
- Entity / Authority Review (Signature & Consent Analysis)
The focus has been practical and immediate: move faster, reduce manual work, and improve consistency across lender-side transactions.
Team Snapshot
Firm | Higier, Allen & Lautin, P.C. |
Team | HAL JDL – Lender-Side CRE Finance |
Practice Focus | Commercial Real Estate Finance (Lender Representation) |
Team Size | 1 Shareholder, 2 Associates, 2 Paralegals |
Deployment Scope | Full team – all 5 users active across 5 workflows |
The Lender-Side Workflow Reality
Lender-side CRE finance work is high-volume, process-driven, time-sensitive, and document-heavy. Before Aeon, the team’s time was heavily consumed by repeatable but critical tasks:
- Drafting the first cut of loan documents from credit memos – a process that consumed 3–5 hours per deal
- Tracking multiple deals in parallel across email, notes, and checklists with no centralized visibility
- Reviewing title commitments and exception documents – a process that could take 3+ hours per loan
- Re-reading updated credit memos in full to identify what changed between versions
- Manually analyzing complex entity structures to determine signing authority and required consents – a process that could take 2+ hours per loan
These workflows are essential – but they are also largely repeatable. That made them the right target for optimization.
Use Cases
Use Case 1: Loan Document Drafting (Credit Memo → Docs) | ||
Before
| With Aeon
| Impact
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Use Case 2: Deal Tracking & Management | ||
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| With Aeon
| Impact
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Use Case 3: Title Review (Paralegal-Driven) | ||
Before
| With Aeon
| Impact
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Use Case 4: Credit Memo Comparison (Change Detection) | ||
Before
| With Aeon
| Impact
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Use Case 5: Entity / Authority Review | ||
Before
| With Aeon
| Impact
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Key Results
~90% Reduction in Drafting Time 3–5 hrs → <15 min | 5 Workflows Optimized Across attorneys & paralegals | 5 Active Users Full team adoption | Instant Change Detection vs. manual re-review |
Speed
| Consistency
| Leverage
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In Their Own Words
“The biggest shift has been on first drafts. What used to take most of a morning now takes under 15 minutes – and the output is cleaner and more consistent than what we were producing manually. Aeon handles the extraction and translation work so we can focus on the parts that actually require legal judgment.” — Cameron Montgomery, Associate – HAL JDL Team, Higier, Allen & Lautin, P.C. |
Implementation Approach
Aeon was rolled out across the entire five-person team – 1 shareholder, two associates, and two paralegals – with adoption structured around role-specific leverage rather than uniform usage.
Attorneys / Shareholder | Drafting, credit memo comparison, entity/authority analysis, deal support workflows, deal tracking |
Paralegals | Title review, deal support workflows, deal tracking |
This role-driven approach – rather than mandating uniform usage – ensured each team member adopted Aeon where it provided the most leverage for their specific work. Full-team rollout happened quickly because the value was immediately apparent.
What We’ve Learned
Credit memo → drafting is the highest-leverage use case.
It’s the most time-intensive step in any deal and the one where errors cascade most significantly downstream. Automating the extraction and translation of credit memo terms into loan document templates delivers immediate, measurable time savings on every transaction.
Change detection is critical in lender-side workflows.
Credit memos are living documents. The risk isn’t just time lost re-reading – it’s acting on outdated terms. Instant, accurate change summaries eliminate that risk and accelerate the team’s ability to react when deal terms shift.
Central deal visibility compounds efficiency across the team.
Tracking deals in Aeon doesn’t just save coordination time – it changes how the team operates. When everyone can see the status of every deal, internal handoffs become faster, fewer items are missed, and the team spends less time managing information and more time advancing transactions.
Paralegal-driven title workflows create meaningful leverage.
By enabling paralegals to run first-pass title review more efficiently and consistently, Aeon moves the entire review process forward faster.
Entity/authority analysis is a consistent source of friction – and optimization adds immediate value.
Every deal involves this analysis. The documents vary in complexity, but the task is fundamentally the same each time: who can sign, what consents are required, and are there any limitations or conflicts. Aeon handles this reliably and consistently, reducing a common source of closing delay.
Full-team rollout works when usage is role-specific.
Forcing everyone to use a tool the same way creates resistance. Giving each role clear, high-value use cases – and letting usage evolve naturally from there – drove rapid adoption without friction.
Bottom Line
Aeon is not changing what the HAL JDL Team does. It is changing how efficiently it gets done. Faster drafts. • Instant change detection. • Complete deal visibility. • Cleaner execution. |
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