LawHawk Blog

While Cognito Forms has proven to be a valuable solution for moderately complex documents and streamlined contract requests and can be a better option than many CLMs offer (as shown in this earlier post), there may be better choices for some use cases.

When faced with more complex documents or the need to generate multiple documents simultaneously, as well as the requirement for seamless data integration from other systems, alternative solutions become necessary. That’s where specialist document automation software, such as HotDocs, shines.

HotDocs offers robust capabilities to handle even the most intricate and complex documents we’ve encountered. With its strong APIs, it can seamlessly integrate with other systems (including SharePoint lists), bridging gaps in document generation wherever needed.

Knowing when a simple document automation solution within a broader CLM solution will suffice and when a more powerful solution is required is not easy and requires extensive experience in the field. If you don’t live in this space, it’s easy to screw it up. When working with the wrong solution, and trying to push it to do things it wasn't designed to do, you can easily find yourself in a situation where you're 90% done, 90% to go.

In Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions, the initial step typically involves a contract request from a business member seeking legal assistance in drafting a contract.

Without a CLM solution, these instructions are often set out in a chain of emails or a Microsoft Word document.

With a CLM solution, this process often entails filling out a digital form designed specifically for this purpose.

However, many of these contract request forms struggle to gain widespread adoption due to their limited functionality. Some of these limitations arise from the technology’s constraints. Traditional CLM solutions often rely on a flat table structure within their databases, making it challenging to handle repeated data entries—a common occurrence in contracts involving multiple deliverables, due dates, and outcomes, for example.

As a lawyer who understands the realities of contracting, I find it frustrating every time I see a CLM demo showing a contract request flowing through to an entire contract and then sending it straight to digital signing with only a handful of basic party details being completed. It’s simplistic and misleading. Where are the rest of the details about the services?!

Moreover, licensing issues further complicate matters, as increased user access to such functionality can sometimes escalate solution costs.

Recognising these obstacles, we have explored alternative options that offer greater affordability, flexibility, and alignment with the realities of the contracting process. Our investigation has centred around solutions that seamlessly integrate with the widely used Microsoft suite of products.

One of the primary reasons organisations seek Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions is the wealth of contract data they can provide.

This data, in turn, feeds into comprehensive dashboards and reports, offering valuable insights and analytics.

However, many contract templates are not drafted in a way that allows for the creation of structured data, hindering the full potential of CLM solutions.

If your template currently requires entering all key service details into a single text box or cross-referring to other documents such as a supplier’s proposal for descriptions of key terms, you’re missing out on a tremendous opportunity.

A significant proposition of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions is the ability to automate key contracts, instantly generating documents with the highest standards of quality and consistency.

However, it is essential to address formatting and numbering issues that often plague contract templates before implementing a CLM solution.

Many legal teams lack knowledge of these formatting nuances, resulting in consistent errors and inconsistencies from their automated system and undermining received benefits.

In many Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions, the contracting process traditionally begins with a contract request.

However, to achieve optimal contracting outcomes, it is crucial to acknowledge that the process should commence well before that stage.

Before committing to a contract, a good process might already have a procurement plan in place. The business may have gone through some form of procurement process and discovery workshop and have some form of a term sheet or heads of agreement setting out key terms. These preliminary steps aid participants in structuring their thinking, identifying the problems they aim to solve, and establishing the desired outcomes and how they will work together to achieve them.

By the time we reach the stage of requesting or drafting a contract, a considerable amount of necessary information should, therefore, already be readily available.

The key lies in ensuring that the previously agreed upon or determined information is accessible for use in the contract without the need for redundant data entry.

Fortunately, there are various approaches to accomplish this.

In the fast-paced world of contract management, the rise of comprehensive Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions has been remarkable.

These solutions offer an array of impressive functionalities and continuous improvements that promise to revolutionise how legal teams and contract managers handle contracts. However, amidst this excitement, we’ve observed many projects that struggle to take off, falter at early stages, or fall into disuse after an initially promising start.

At the heart of this issue lies a disconnect between the capabilities these full-featured solutions offer and what legal and procurement teams and organisations actually want and are capable of utilising.

In a recent conversation, a General Counsel succinctly expressed the sentiment shared by many: after extensive exploration of numerous options, all he really wanted was a fully searchable SharePoint library with all contracts in one place, accompanied by essential metadata such as expiry dates to ensure no renewal slipped through the cracks.

Because of our focus on document and legal automation, you might expect us to advocate for automating everything, but as with most things, it’s about context.

Automation is great when you have very high volumes, many standard options you need to choose from, and/or details that need to be entered multiple times. In those situations, you can save 75% or more of the drafting time while ensuring that the right clauses are inserted in the correct format. It can get you 90% or more of the way there, allowing you time to add the final 10%.
You don’t need to automate all documents, though.

“A good contract can go in the bottom draw and never be looked at again” was what people said when I started as a lawyer in the 1990s. Contracts were seen as legal documents to be written by lawyers, negotiated by lawyers, and read by other lawyers - if there was a dispute. 

via GIPHY

A recent series of articles published by Zac de Silva and Mark Fisher touched on issues that we've been observing recently too.

Mark Fisher states, "I've never seen a candidate-short market as extreme as this… and I worked in London through the GFC from 2006 to 2012. It's putting so much pressure on all of us and that's across every single industry, whether it's nursing, retail, hospital, professional services, engineering, tech, digital – every single industry is dramatically short."

It's clearly become very challenging for law firms too, and it will get worse.

The article above contains some great suggestions on better managing retention and staff recruitment.

There's another lever that can also help – technology.