A common concern we hear when talking to prospective clients about legal automation is that they haven't got a budget, and they don't think they can get one.

Often, however, this is before we have discussed the size and cost of the problem or the opportunity to be addressed and the expected benefits, and therefore, it needs more context before a price can be agreed and a budget could be obtained.

What should you do before worrying about price and budget for an automation project?

When I’m asked for the best resources to improve overall contracting processes and outcomes, there are two that I can recommend knowing they will provide excellent insights and return on investment.

While particularly relevant for in-house legal teams and contract managers (who can get immediate benefits), they offer significant value to commercial lawyers in law firms who want to understand how they can really add the most value to their clients’ businesses.

Looking ahead to the coming year, I think (maybe with a bit of hope thrown in) several themes will be key. This is what we will be focussing on helping our customers with, and in our own business.

When evaluating new technology, a proof of concept can be a very helpful way of ensuring you get what you think you are getting while avoiding unnecessary costs.

However, we sometimes see proof-of-concept projects that go off the rails, don’t achieve the expected outcomes, and cost a lot of money.

There is one particular mistake that we frequently see people make.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions often boast an enticing feature known as auto redlining, enabling the automatic review of draft contracts by artificial intelligence (AI) to suggest changes. While this functionality may seem promising, its utility and effectiveness warrant closer examination.

I approach this feature with a degree of scepticism. Contracts represent a record of the collaborative arrangement between parties, leveraging their unique skills and experiences to create shared value. The question arises: Can AI, based on the analysis of countless contracts, truly capture and enhance the maximum value that can be achieved through collaboration by these two or more particular parties?

One of the standout features offered by comprehensive Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions is the ability to create and utilise playbooks within Microsoft Word. This functionality allows users to identify clauses they may disagree with and replace them with preferred alternatives or approved language, adding a layer of customisation and flexibility to contract drafting.

While this feature appears highly valuable, its practicality and adoption within teams may be questionable. Many organisations struggle to fully adopt and utilise even basic CLM functionality, making enhanced features like playbooks seem like a nice-to-have for future implementation rather than an immediate necessity.

Collaboration functionality is often touted as a significant advantage of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions, enabling seamless internal and external cooperation during the contract process. However, external collaboration, in particular, has its challenges. While it may seem impressive in demos, the reality is that it often requires the other party to change their established processes and work on a platform chosen by you. In practice, people are generally reluctant to change and may prefer to work on the contract in their own environment until they are satisfied, ultimately emailing it back. The functionality may not get used as much as hoped for.

The purpose of a contract is not to create a mere piece of paper or electronic document stored in a contract library. It also goes beyond just enabling a party to sue the other party when things go wrong. Instead, it serves as a tool to facilitate collaborative actions between parties, helping to achieve shared objectives. To achieve those objectives, effective contract management requires timely and accurate information about the agreed terms presented in a format that is easy for those responsible for delivering the contract objectives to comprehend. This lets parties understand their responsibilities, deadlines, standards, and financial obligations.

Within the Microsoft environment, there are key options available to enhance contract reporting and analytics:

If an organisation is a collection of contracts that cover everything the organisation buys and sells, then contract data is the new oil. But there can be a lot of data!

Utilising document automation to generate contracts provides the advantage of transforming every question in the questionnaire into valuable data that can be input into a contract database. Additionally, the capabilities of the document automation solution enable the creation of various additional data points through complex calculations on the initial data. However, when confronted with a multitude of data columns in a document library, it can be challenging for users to leverage this wealth of information effectively.

Fortunately, there are several options available to enhance the usefulness of contract views in SharePoint:

An essential requirement expressed by legal teams for their contract database, apart from the ability to perform easy full-text searches, is the ability to quickly identify upcoming expiry dates to avoid any omission and have sufficient time to take necessary actions.

How can this be done in a Microsoft environment?