We live in a time when in-house legal counsels' responsibilities are no longer confined to producing legal papers or offering legal advice. In-house counsels now have a wide range of responsibilities. Firms want them to undertake paralegal activities such as strategic guidance while also performing ordinary legal tasks. Expectations boost in-house counsels' productivity, but they also increase their burden, which leaves room for mistakes. That's where AI-powered Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) products come in handy.
The situation of in-house lawyers who do not have access to CLM:
Lack of accessibility:
A bird's-eye perspective of all contracts is required to avoid unjustified legal and financial consequences resulting from infractions or inaccuracies. On the other hand, manual contract administration is a difficult task for any legal team.
Restricted Proactiveness:
In-house counsels can be more active in developing critical legal strategies for the company by reducing their time spent on repeated contracts, particularly if the legal team is minimal. Even internal teams like HR can construct basic daily agreements if given legally sound customisable documents, but manual contract administration makes this impossible.
Interrupted Retrievals:
Contract management is an important responsibility for in-house counsels since it serves as the framework for their other responsibilities. They continuously design, implement, and renew a large number of paper-based contracts as protectors of the firm's legal elements, which may grow so extensive that they waste a lot of time looking through the needed paperwork.
Delay in Approvals:
Acquiring contracts authorised by appropriate stakeholders is part of contract management. Manual contract procedures, on the other hand, aren't as straightforward as they appear; they need negotiating contracts through numerous internal teams. It necessitates effective coordination and takes a large amount of time. The misfortunes continue. Manual contract management is inefficient and wastes time and money, decreasing the effectiveness of legal teams.
Let us now see how CLM may be in-house counsel's best mate.
Complete transparency:
One of the main responsibilities of in-house counsel is to keep a record of all contracts. Nonetheless, they are human, and their effectiveness in managing each contract has a ceiling. It's nearly difficult for any in-house lawyer to keep track of the current state of multitudes of ongoing contracts. However, neglecting to do so exposes you to legal and commercial consequences. As a result, every legal team needs CLM software to analyse terms, reduce risks, manage progress, and reviewal dates, and have a 360-degree perspective of each contract.
Increased efficiency and reduced responsibilities:
Many of the contracts in a firm are routine and simple enough for non-legal teams to handle. Non-legal departments like HR and Sales may generate simple everyday contracts like Employee Agreements and invoices on their own using CLM systems, which give a wide selection of contract templates. Internal teams will no longer have to rely on legal teams to produce small contract agreements, freeing up time for the legal team to engage in higher-level legal and strategic operations. It will assist in-house counsel in better understanding the firm's needs and objectives. Furthermore, in-house counsels can review current contracts, assess the strategy of other legal teams, and limit risks.
Streamlined Collaboration:
In-house counsels may stop bouncing between communications and third-party software to evaluate or negotiate contracts with internal teams and counterparties, thanks to built-in CLM capabilities for encrypted inter-and intra-team interaction.
Approvals in a reasonable timeframe:
Contracts must be steered via several departments, which necessitates cooperation between the legal and other teams. With CLM technologies, in-house counsel may engage with internal teams with simplicity and efficiency. It automates the contract preparation and regulatory approval, removing the need for in-house counsels to go between departments to execute contracts.
Credible Storage-retrieval tools:
The amount of data generated by contracts is enormous, necessitating the use of a sophisticated database. Manual contract administration is prone to issues such as loss, fraud, data breach, significant damage, and so on, adding to the legal team's already heavy task of having to resubmit the same papers. Stocking and refiling paper-based contracts consume both time and expense. In-house counsels, on the other hand, may utilise CLM software's cloud storage and powerful search criteria to quickly obtain desired contracts-documents, avoiding the pain of trawling through hundreds of other papers. Cloud storage provides a safe sanctuary for all of the legal team's contracts, allowing only authorised individuals to view them.
Bottom Line - CLM has the potential to dramatically alleviate their discomfort. With CLM technologies, in-house counsel may provide more lucrative solutions than just handling legal concerns. With the increased demand for in-house counsel who can work quickly and proactively, it's past time for businesses to embrace CLM technologies. Legal teams can effortlessly migrate from manual to automated contract procedures with one-stop-shop-CLM solutions - #ManuContract. Want to know how? Book a free trial or request a demo with #ManuContract today!