August 11, 2021

contracts value contracts lifecycle management

The article linked below talks a lot about allaying lawyers’ fears of CLM technology to increase adoption. I’m not sure that will work. Fear is a motivator but also more often a de-motivator.

Rather, if CLM technology is positioned as one key way to “enable lawyers to practice more law,” I feel it will have a better chance at being adopted. Lawyers go to law school with hearts and minds full of idealism and hope. They exit and enter private practice, and many find that the profession is “a grind” and that rites of passage like long days of document reviews are the daily experience. Hence the large pool of “recovering lawyers.”

However, if technology like CLM can enable transaction lawyers to delegate more routine work that does not require their legal training, and free themselves up to be more strategic on behalf of their clients, it not only increases the lawyers’ morale but ends up adding more value to clients. Which client wants to pay their lawyer $350-$600 per hour to review routine statements of work for contracting with vendors? Not many, but they end up doing it anyway. If that work can be done by law firm staff at lower rates, freeing up the more senior lawyers to provide legal advice, it helps everyone. That’s the true promise of CLM.

Caution: CLM technology is not an elixir. Implementing it does not automatically create the benefits above. Law firm leadership needs to feel comfortable having routine contract work performed by paraprofessionals and first-year associates. Leaders also need to be confident about presenting a model to clients that blends a team of resources at different rates to perform duties – the right resource, doing the right work.