The £5m-an-hour problem for UK SMBs: GitLaw launches the credit check for contracts to cut legal losses

Birmingham, UK – 7 July 2026 – Legal disputes cost UK small businesses an estimated £11.6 billion a year¹ - £5.6 million every working hour. Most of that loss is invisible: risky clauses, missing protections and auto-renewals buried in contracts nobody has time to re-read. Today GitLaw launched a free Contract Health Score to change that, using AI to read a business's entire contract portfolio in seconds and returning one clear, plain-English score, with the reasoning behind it and the steps to improve it.

A Contract Health Check returns, in plain English:

• The gaps: contracts you should have but don't, such as a supplier with no NDA or a client with no signed SOW.
• The risks: unusual clauses, missing protections, and auto-renewals creeping up.
• Your playbooks: your standard positions written up, so every future contract starts on your terms.
• Your contacts: every counterparty pulled out with the legal specifics attached, including who they are, what law governs, and key dates.
• Your renewals: every key date tracked, so nothing sneaks up again.

"Most founders have no idea what is actually in their contracts. Not because they are careless, but because nobody has time to re-read 80 agreements hunting for the one auto-renewal about to bite. So we built something that does it for them: upload your contracts and you get one clear read on where you stand, in plain English. It is not legal advice, just knowing exactly where you stand," said Nick Holzherr, Founder of GitLaw.

Unlike generic AI tools, GitLaw is built specifically for legal work, developed with a standards committee of human lawyers and trained on specialist areas of law.

The Contract Health Check is available now and free; businesses can get their score at git.law.

This release is also available in a U.S. edition.

About GitLaw

Meet GitLaw. The AI Agent for your legal contracts. Giving businesses the power to understand and negotiate any contract. Learn more at git.law.

A contract health check is not legal advice. For complex or high-risk situations, GitLaw recommends involving a solicitor.

Notes to editors

¹ Source: Department for Business and Trade, Backing Your Business (2025). Disputes cost UK SMEs £11.6bn a year, equivalent to £5.6m per working hour (based on 2,080 working hours). gov.uk/government/publications/backing-your-business-our-plan-for-small-and-medium-sized-businesses

Media contact

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