Knife-sharpening and legal efficiency

26 July 2026

I sharpen our household knives. I iron our laundry. I keep a dress shoe collection north of thirty pairs conditioned and polished. I even wash our cars and change their oil.

All by hand.

And I often time myself doing each.

Ironing a polo shirt takes about three minutes, five for a long-sleeve shirt. Washing a VW Golf R takes about twenty-five minutes, a Wrangler about thirty.

I do each myself for two reasons: to find efficiencies, and to make sure each is done right. The right soap and water pressure on the cars. The right oil viscosity. The right torque spec. The right heat on silk, through a press cloth. Shoes conditioned, five minutes to absorb, before polish. Twenty strokes along a whetstone at fifteen degrees for the high-carbon stainless blades, fifteen strokes on a diamond plate at seventeen degrees for my high-vanadium steel, then the strop, leather then nylon, finished with a razor-thin coat of oil.

I am not suggesting you take up ironing. Doing it myself is not the point; the habit of knowing what right looks like, and where the wasted time hides, is. Once you know both, you can tell in about two seconds whether a job was done properly, whether it was rushed, or whether someone took their sweet time at your expense. And you can never be sold the difference again.

That is the exact reason I started a legal efficiency consultancy, Ergane (after Athena, at her most industrious). To trim the wasted time without trimming quality.

Ask your lawyer how long a custom SaaS MSA draft will take. You get a guess, and you treat it as definitive. They say a week or two, and that's that. The guess becomes the standard, and an unchecked standard becomes a headcount request, and then another.

But that guess is itself an unknown stacked on several more. How efficient is the lawyer? Who does which part, and why? What tools do they use, and how are those configured? Where are the bottlenecks, and can they be removed?

Every one is knowable. Case in point: over the last six months I worked on 455 legal instruments, 5,088 pages. A vendor or SaaS agreement, across every pass, takes me about six minutes per page. An employment agreement about four. Formation and governance documents, about two and a half.

But almost nobody measures, and the few who do don't know what to do with the results.

That is where Ergane shines. I examine your legal team's people, processes, toolsets, and configurations, then establish (a) how long the work takes today, (b) what can be streamlined, and (c) a plan to get there.

Before I buy another kitchen knife, I make sure the ones I already have are cutting at their finest. Only then can I know whether I actually need another one.

Shouldn't you do the same before you hire another lawyer or pay for more legal technology?

Let me make sure your lawyers are cutting at their finest first.

Visit erganelegal.com for a free consultation.

Ergane. One weaver. The work of a team.