Technology Approaches for Contract Lawyers

Often, law departments’ delivery of contract management services is still like the Wild Western side — a lawless frontier. Within a single law department, strategies to managing contracts may vary quite among practices or teams, if not among individual lawyers themselves. Some teams or lawyers are straight fps: very self-displined, requiring structured submission of asks, using pre-approved web templates, and capturing data and executed documents at the end of Legal’s involvement in the lifecycle of the contract. Most lawyers, however, still take asks by email, look to their personal deposit of past contracts with “good” language, and file the latest version of the contract they had (often, not the executed version) in their personal email folder. Although both strategies may produce an excellent contract that accomplishes the consumer’s objectives, there is a problem to consider: the risk of variations in negotiated terms across similar contracts and the inefficiency of lawyers hanging out inserting key convention that are regularly missing when the client submits a contract. As a result, law sectors of all shapes and sizes are thinking about technology options to improve the delivery of contract services.

As a former head of technology consulting services to law sectors and a professional now charged with instituting efficient contract management services, I am often asked to recommend contract management software. Although the lifecycle of a contract can be indicated the same way among most law sectors, unfortunately, the role that technology plays within that lifecycle for a law department is not one-size-fits-all. I’ve led clients through the query of a variety of approaches and will describe four general strategies to consider.

Repository Approach — This method is what I have most often seen within law sectors. A common rule is, “Legal is not online resources the contract. inch Here legal issues department on purpose helps prevent technology and processes that might entail Legal does more than reviewing/drafting a contract and providing legal counsel. As a result, legal issues department simply wants a central location to store its web templates, the versions of the contract on which the lawyers worked technology licensing lawyer, and the final version of the contract (in case there are questions or disputes). The best technology to support this method is a legal document management system that allows storage and profiling of documents.

Piggy-Back Approach — Some teams of lawyers believe in the benefit of having more visibility into the metrics behind legal contract services. Knowing the types and amounts of contracts that clients are requesting, understanding the transformation time for a contract request, or having insight into how often certain/different types of players may take place can inform how the department should staff and approach contract service delivery. To make this happen insight, the department must gather some detail about the contracts on which they work. A database can capture key data points or business terms that describe a contract (the type of contract, date of the request, parties in the contract and value of the contract). However, with Legal as a cost center, purchasing tracking software can be tricky. Therefore, sectors may look to “piggy-back, inch profiting software such as the department’s matter management system. Some matter management systems are not ideal for tracking contract terms. A better fit might be systems with contract management functionality, such as those employed by Procurement (purchase-to-pay systems) or Finance/Accounting (ERP systems). Undoubtedly, corporate IT groups will thank those who choose to piggy-back on existing technology!

Point Solutions — In some cases, lawyers may seek to improve very specific processes, and there are tools that offer functionality to treat a single need. For example, teams of real estate lawyers in the retail sector may spend inordinate amounts of time abstracting large amounts of leases. Why not use an automated abstraction tool to assist with quick and easy documentation of rent business convention? Another group of lawyers may spend significant time reviewing large amounts of low-risk contracts. Document assembly software provides client self-service web templates, along with the security that clients are using company-approved web templates without changing the terms. There are a wide variety of point answers to support document composing, document comparison, document review, electronic signatures, workflow/request management, automated pointers, OCR and obligation management.