Tag: contract review

Contract Bottlenecks: Early Warning Signs of Deeper Operational Risk

Posted on February 25, 2026 by - Contract Lifecycle Management

contract bottlenecks early warning signs

Contract bottlenecks signal more than scheduling conflicts. They expose systemic problems that quietly undermine legal operations, business velocity and strategic decision-making.

Most legal departments measure contract cycle time as a performance metric. Fewer treat it as a diagnostic tool. When contracts stall repeatedly, the issue extends beyond individual agreements. Bottlenecks point to fragmented workflows, missing data, manual handoffs, and disconnected systems that compound over time.

Contracts don’t just slow business down. They reveal exactly where legal operations break.

Where contract bottlenecks actually start

Delays rarely begin at the negotiation table. They start earlier, during intake, routing and initial review. Requests arrive through email, chat or informal channels without essential context. Legal teams spend days gathering information that should have been captured upfront.

Without structured intake, contracts enter the queue incomplete. Missing details force multiple rounds of clarification. Business partners grow frustrated. Legal teams lose time they could spend on substantive review.

Manual routing creates the next layer of delay. Teams forward agreements based on availability rather than expertise. Contracts land with the wrong reviewer, requiring reassignment and starting the cycle over. No one has visibility into who’s handling what or where approvals stand.

These early-stage problems multiply downstream. By the time a contract reaches negotiation, it’s already behind schedule. The perception becomes that Legal slows deals down. The reality is that broken intake and routing processes create the friction.

Disconnected systems hide operational problems

Contract management tools often operate in isolation from other legal systems. Contract data lives in one platform. Matter information sits in another. Spend tracking exists somewhere else. Business context remains trapped in email threads.

This fragmentation forces manual work at every handoff. Contract details require re-entry when creating matter records. Budget information needs separate input even though the contract already specifies terms. Vendor performance data doesn’t connect to contract execution, so evaluation happens from memory instead of evidence.

Legal teams spend hours reconstructing information that should flow automatically. Every manual transfer introduces error risk and every disconnected system creates a gap in visibility.

When contracts stall because information doesn’t move with the work, the problem isn’t capacity. It’s infrastructure. More headcount won’t solve what broken systems create.

manual contract approvals

Manual approvals become invisible chokepoints

Email-based approval workflows turn contracts into black boxes. Stakeholders send agreements into inboxes and wait. No one knows whether the contract is under review, stuck in someone’s queue, or lost entirely.

Requests sit unanswered not because people ignore them, but because they disappear into crowded inboxes. Urgent contracts look identical to routine ones. Business partners resort to follow-up messages, phone calls and hallway conversations just to determine status.

Manual routing creates inconsistency. Some contracts move quickly because the right person happened to be available. Others languish because someone is traveling, overloaded, or unaware the request exists. No standard path means no predictable timeline.

This opacity damages credibility. Legal appears unresponsive even when teams work constantly. Business partners lose trust not because Legal fails to deliver, but because they can’t see progress or predict outcomes.

Centralized approval workflows replace guesswork with structure. Requests route automatically based on contract type, risk level or business unit. Status updates happen in real time. Stakeholders see exactly where agreements stand without asking.

Budget surprises trace back to contract bottlenecks and disconnect

Contracts define financial commitments, yet those commitments often fail to connect with spend management systems. Legal teams approve agreements without visibility into how terms will affect budgets. Outside counsel begins work before matter costs are tracked. Invoice review happens separately from the contracts that authorized the work.

This disconnect creates retroactive problems. Spend appears unexpectedly because contract terms weren’t captured in matter records. Budget forecasts miss the mark because commitment data lives in isolated systems. Finance asks questions Legal can’t answer without manually reconstructing contract details.

When contract management operates separately from spend tracking, teams lose the ability to enforce billing guidelines proactively. Approved rates don’t flow into invoice review. Scope definitions don’t connect to matter budgets. Compliance becomes reactive instead of preventative.

Contract lifecycle management platforms address this by connecting execution to downstream operations. Contract terms populate matter records automatically. Budget data flows into spend tracking without re-entry. Vendor commitments link directly to invoice review processes.

This integration doesn’t just prevent errors. It creates operational intelligence. Teams can analyze spending by contract type, vendor or business unit. They can forecast based on actual commitments rather than estimates. They can demonstrate value through data that already exists in their daily work.

Missing data turns contract review into archaeological work

Contract review slows dramatically when historical context doesn’t exist. Legal teams face new agreements without access to previous versions, negotiated positions, or vendor performance. Every review starts from scratch because institutional knowledge lives in individual memory rather than connected systems.

Teams spend time searching for information that should be instantly available. What terms did we accept last time? How did this vendor perform? What risks did we identify during prior negotiations? These questions require digging through email archives, old documents, or asking colleagues who might remember.

This inefficiency compounds when personnel change. When someone leaves or shifts roles, their knowledge disappears with them. New team members start with no baseline, repeating research and analysis that’s already been done.

Modern contract repositories solve this by making data searchable and connected. Previous agreements with the same vendor surface automatically. Risk flags from earlier reviews carry forward. Performance data informs current decisions without requiring manual lookup.

Contracts move faster when context moves with them. Teams review with confidence because relevant history is accessible. Negotiation positions stay consistent because past decisions inform current ones. Risk assessment improves because patterns become visible across agreements.

contract bottlenecks and budget data

Compliance gaps emerge from siloed contract data

Contract obligations often fail to connect with compliance monitoring systems. Renewal dates, delivery commitments, and performance requirements live in contracts but don’t trigger proactive oversight. Legal teams discover missed deadlines after they occur rather than receiving advance warning.

Manual tracking of contract obligations doesn’t scale. Spreadsheets require constant updates. Calendars depend on someone remembering to check them. Important dates slip through when workload increases or attention shifts elsewhere.

This reactive approach creates unnecessary risk. Automatic renewals occur without review. Contractual deadlines pass without delivery. Performance commitments go unmonitored until problems surface.

Automated compliance tracking changes this by treating contract data as operational triggers. Renewal dates generate alerts weeks before action is required. Delivery commitments populate task lists automatically. Performance requirements connect to vendor scorecards without manual input.

This shift from reactive to proactive compliance reduces risk while eliminating busywork. Teams focus on addressing obligations rather than tracking them. Business partners gain confidence that commitments will be met. Audits become simpler because oversight is systematic rather than ad hoc.

Contract velocity reflects operational health

Contract cycle time serves as a proxy for how well legal operations function overall. Fast contract execution doesn’t just mean efficient negotiations. It indicates properly structured intake, connected systems, clear workflows, and accessible data.

When contracts consistently stall, the underlying issues extend beyond contract management. Bottlenecks signal fragmented tools, manual handoffs, missing integration, and insufficient visibility. These problems affect everything legal teams do, from matter management to spend control to compliance oversight.

Addressing contract bottlenecks and other issues requires looking beyond individual agreements to the systems that support them. Quick fixes like additional reviewers or escalation processes treat symptoms rather than causes. Sustainable improvement comes from connecting workflows, automating routine tasks and ensuring information flows with the work.

Modern legal operations platforms approach contract management as part of a unified system. Intake connects to execution. Execution connects to matter management. Matter management connects to spend tracking. Spend tracking connects to vendor oversight. All of it flows into reporting without requiring manual compilation.

This integration doesn’t just speed contracts. It creates the foundation for legal departments to operate strategically. Teams gain visibility into workload and capacity. They can forecast accurately because commitments are tracked systematically. They demonstrate value through metrics that reflect actual operations rather than anecdotal evidence.

operational efficiency by eliminating contract bottlenecks

Moving from reactive to strategic

Contract bottlenecks don’t fix themselves. They worsen as legal departments handle more complexity, adopt more tools and face higher expectations from business partners. Treating delays as individual problems rather than systemic signals allows operational gaps to widen.

Legal teams need to examine where contracts stall most consistently. Does it happen during intake when information is missing? During routing when no one knows who should review? During approval when visibility disappears? During compliance when obligations aren’t tracked?

Identifying the highest-cost bottlenecks helps prioritize where changes deliver immediate impact. Structured intake eliminates early delays. Automated routing ensures contracts reach the right reviewer immediately. Centralized workflows provide visibility throughout the process. Integrated systems carry contract data forward without manual transfer.

Contract management isn’t separate from legal operations. It’s a window into how well legal operations work. Teams that treat contract velocity as a diagnostic tool gain insight into where their infrastructure needs strengthening. They move from reacting to problems toward preventing them systematically.

Eliminating contract bottlenecks requires more than process improvement. It demands connected systems that support how legal teams actually work. When intake flows into execution, execution flows into matter management, and matter management flows into spend control, contracts stop stalling. Work moves predictably. Data stays accurate. Legal operates strategically rather than reactively.

Addressing contract bottlenecks through connected operations

If your team is ready to address the systemic issues behind contract bottlenecks and delays, explore our comprehensive guide: Make Your Move: A Strategic Guide to Escaping the Manual Maze of Modern Legal Work. It outlines practical steps legal departments can take to reduce manual work, increase visibility, and build connected operations that support business velocity.

For teams specifically looking to accelerate contract review cycles, our research Better Call GPT: Can AI Contract Review Outlaw the Traditional Legal Reviewer? demonstrates how AI-powered contract review delivers 70x-270x faster turnaround times while improving accuracy. The findings reveal how legal departments can eliminate review bottlenecks that compound operational delays across the entire contracting process.

Contract Process: 7 Essential Stages of Contract Management

Posted on February 24, 2026 by - Contract Lifecycle Management

stages of contract management

Updated February 2026

Effective contract management doesn’t only involve developing agreements and getting them signed – it’s a series of actions that guide you from the earliest stages of developing holistic processes for handling each and every company agreement, through to the steps to seeing contracts through to their conclusion. Having a clear understanding of what happens at each stage is an important way to ensure your contract management processes meet all of the requirements and objectives to deliver optimal results.

What is Contract Management?

Contract management describes the contract process from the moment contracts are created to their eventual termination. The goal is to maintain control over the planning, implementation, and termination. This also includes any and all steps that are taken to ensure proper reporting and obligation fulfillment.

Contract management also involves any legal actions undertaken to address breaches of contract. For instance, those who are responsible for managing the contract process may provide non-compliant parties with a course of action to become compliant, or they can simply choose to terminate the agreement and find another party to work with.

Contract Management vs. Contract Lifecycle Management

Contract management is frequently confused with its cousin – Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). It doesn’t help when some introduce the term “contract management lifecycle” while referring to the former. This only adds to the confusion.

While both contract management and CLM are similar and share the same “big picture” goal (i.e. managing contracts), there is a critical difference between them.

Contract lifecycle management divides contract operations into clear, defined stages whose actions are optimized to ensure maximum efficiency. Legal agreements are ferried through the entire contract lifecycle in accordance with designated workflows and conditions. This is frequently achieved by leveraging legal technology that adjusts actions to accomplish each stage of the contract lifecycle.

Contract management, by comparison, is a blanket term that can be applied to all activities associated with contracting. The term can even apply to situations when a contract is never fully executed and is abandoned in the early stages of its life.

In simpler terms, CLM is simply one approach to contract management. It combines people, processes, and technology in a way that allows organizations to get the most out of their contracts. Similar to how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square, CLM is a type of contract management while contract management is much more than just CLM.

Stages of Contract Management

One of the purposes of breaking contract management into distinct stages is to make it easier to analyze contract workflows and processes. Since the entire process is separated into recognizable steps, this allows managers and teams to identify broad trends and locate areas of improvement.

Here are the seven essential stages of contract management.

1. Planning stage

Before you can implement a process, it’s important to develop a system that will best suit your company’s needs and resources. To keep things streamlined and organized, it’s also important to develop contract management processes that can be implemented company-wide.

Your contract management strategy is a flexible roadmap consisting of processes that account for all types of company agreements, from standard employment contracts to the paperwork from highly specific and complex deals. The first step to developing your strategy is to determine your needs, including answering the following:

  • What types of contracts do you have to manage and in what volume?
  • Are there standard agreements you use again and again? What needs to be included in these?
  • Who is responsible for each stage of contract management and what do they need to perform their job?
  • Who has the final say on the contract approval process?
  • What common problems have occurred in the past, or what issues might arise during the management of a typical contract?
  • What resources are required to implement your contract strategy?
  • What contract data are you tracking? Where is it stored? How is it reported?
contract management planning stage

Understanding the remaining stages of contract management will help to inform your processes. If you’re currently unable to answer the questions listed above, you may need to adjust your contracting processes.

2. Implementation stage

Once you have outlined your contract management workflow, you will need to implement your plan before you can start using it. This includes deploying contract lifecycle management software to help you to execute contract-related tasks, as well as migrating your contracts to a centralized repository.

A crucial part of your implementation plan is onboarding – making sure everyone involved understands your vision and objectives for contract management and is comfortable with the CLM software they will be using.

3. Pre-contract stage

Now that you have your contract management foundation set up, you can begin to implement it for new contracts. That means developing new contracts or implementing boilerplate agreements for more standard situations. The key challenge of this stage of contract management is developing a specific document that will deliver what you need and reduce your risks.

For standard situations, this stage may be as simple as finding the right contract type, entering the relevant information, and perhaps making a few tweaks. More unusual or complex contracting scenarios may require the development of a whole new document. Developing a contract from scratch can be made easier by looking at other agreements that might be applicable and adapting those terms. Leverage generative AI tools to accelerate drafting, clause suggestions, and contract review. Don’t forget to carry over any important requirements such as compliance obligations or branding standards. Once you have agreed on the terms and developed your contract, eSignatures can keep things moving.

4. Handover stage

It’s common – especially in larger companies – that the individuals involved in executing a contract are not the same as those who negotiated it. Thus, in order to ensure the contract is fulfilled as expected, it’s important to ensure a smooth handover. Rather than assuming stakeholders have everything they need, it’s useful to spend some time walking through all of the contract details and confirming roles, responsibilities and milestones.

5. Contract stage

The contract stage is when all of the goals of your contracts come to life, assuming you manage them properly. And the previous contract management steps you’ve completed so far are setting you up to do just that.

But the contract stage doesn’t manage itself. It’s here where you must play close attention to all of the terms laid out within your agreement and perform regular monitoring to make sure everything is happening as it should. It’s useful to have a plan for doing so, with a clear sense of key milestones and performance metrics. This will let you confirm everything is on track or provide an early warning system if any problems arise.

renewal stages of contract management

6. Pre-renewal stage

Nothing lives forever – not even your contracts. But there are several ways your agreements may come to an end: one-off agreements may wind down to a natural conclusion, you may renew an agreement, or choose to terminate it. Often there are specific terms – and even possibly penalties or default actions, should you fail to do anything – that can affect the outcome. This is why it’s important to start thinking about the end of your contract in a proactive and timely manner. Now is the time to evaluate how your contract performed. Then decide whether you want to renew and/or make any changes. Make sure all stakeholders are aware of termination and renewal dates. That way you have enough time to consider all the information before you get locked into any decisions.

7. Post-contract stage

Once a contract ends, there is still some housekeeping to do to ensure that everything is wrapped up properly. This includes ensuring termination conditions have been met, issuing or paying final invoices, and archiving your contract. It’s also useful to perform a contract post-mortem. This can provide valuable information and learnings that can improve the results of future contracts.

Challenges of Contract Management

When manually managing contracts, many companies rely on Microsoft Word to draft contracts, Microsoft Excel to analyze data, and Microsoft Outlook to share documents and information. Even if they don’t use Microsoft, they turn to another major provider like Google or Apple.

On the one hand, relying on familiar software removes the need to train people on how to use specialized software. Since most employees probably grew up using Microsoft, Google, or Apple (or, most likely, all three). This appeals to companies since new employees can start doing meaningful work from Day 1.

On the other hand, generalized software lacks the power and capabilities of specialized software. And most document actions have to be carried out manually, which creates opportunities for errors and typos.

Real-life examples

Successful contract management isn’t easily achieved. In fact, it can be brought down by a simple spreadsheet cell.

According to Forbes, 88% of all spreadsheets contain “significant” errors, and even the best spreadsheets have an error in 1% or more of their cells. To top it off? Most were made by a human.

For massive, multi-billion dollar corporations, errors in spreadsheets could cost them millions in lost revenue. That’s the best case. In the worst case, mistakes could expose companies to a legal fall that ruins countless careers, if not send the company into bankruptcy (and regulatory lawsuits).

Consider that JPMorgan Chase once lost over $6 billion during its “London Whale” fiasco, which they reported was in part due to spreadsheet errors that appeared from poor copy-pasting of information.

Barclays had a similar issue. They were forced to spend millions on worthless contracts during the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy proceedings in 2008. Instead of deleting contracts they did not intend to buy, they simply “hid” the contracts in their Excel spreadsheet. Then, when the spreadsheet was exported to PDF and submitted to the court, the hidden rows were included, causing Barclays to be legally committed to buying contracts they didn’t want.

The lesson from these real-life examples is that not only can errors in management lead to massive losses, but many of the smaller errors can be challenging to spot. For example, if you submit a purchase order to buy pencils at $.10 each only to miss the decimal point, you could find yourself on the hook for paying $10 per pencil.

manual contract work

Manual contract management

Manual contract management can be fraught with peril. As mentioned in the examples above, bad contract management will create massive headaches, as well as financial and reputational losses that can be difficult to recover from.

This defeats the purpose of good contract management, which is to control costs, manage funds, reduce risk, and ensure high-quality performance.

Still, if your organization does suffer from below-average contract management, it’s not the end of the world. Poor processes can be overhauled into workflows that do the job.

Common contract problems

But before you can reform your processes, you first need to identify the issues that plague them. Here is a short list of some of the more common contract management problems:

  • Lack of visibility – Contracts contain a lot of information. It’s common to lose track of data only to find out that something is missing (or accidentally added) after the fact.
  • Missed contract renewals and obligations – If reminders aren’t scheduled, it’s easy to inadvertently miss a deadline for reporting, renewing, or terminating. You may find yourself locked into a contract you don’t like.
  • Inflating costs – The more time you spend manually working on contracts and reporting, the more money you spend.
  • Data gaps – Sometimes information isn’t entered into a spreadsheet or system when it should be. This creates gaps in information that need to be addressed, yet they’ll only be addressed after they were needed.
  • Manually-entered data – As JPMorgan proved, it’s easy for data entry to create mistakes. Whether it’s bad copy-pasting or missed keystrokes, no matter the error, it will still be legally enforceable if it was entered into a contract.

These are just a few of the potential snags and bottlenecks that can affect contract management. To identify what problems hinder your own processes, you’ll need to conduct a thorough analysis of your workflows.

contract analysis

How to Simplify Contract Management

One of the most straightforward options for streamlining contract management is to adopt a specialized contract management software. One that boosts contracting efficiency while reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, expenses, and red tape.

In addition to contract management software, here are some actionable tactics that will speed up and facilitate your contract management workflows:

  • Put in the work to standardize templates, language, and rules
  • Create a model of the contract management process that outlines the steps of the process
  • Develop a contract playbook that provides clear explanations for standard contracts
  • Determine which metrics your team will use to assess contract management efficiency
  • Adopt an automated contract management solution
  • Designate and organize a dedicated contract repository that can serve as a single source of truth for all contracts, templates, data, and reporting

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do. There are many more steps you can take to accelerate your contracting.

Moving Forward

Contract management contains a lot of moving parts and elements. Although it can be challenging at first to map out a clear contract management process, especially if there’s little to no documentation that indicates current practices, the benefits far outweigh the investment.

There are several routes to easing the friction of implementing contract management. This be as simple as the introduction of specialized legal technology, digitalization of storage, and document automation.

To find out how ContractWorks can empower your contract management processes, contact our team for a demo. They’ll show you how our platform can help you take (and stay) in control of your contracts (without the big price tag).

Modern Legal Operations Starts with Smarter Tools, Not More People 

Posted on August 1, 2025 by - Legal Operations

Modern legal operations doesn’t need more complexity. It needs a reset.

Legal teams everywhere are feeling the pressure: do more with less, move faster without compromising accuracy, and be strategic while staying compliant. Sounds like a tall order, doesn’t it? That’s where modern legal operations come in.  

Today’s legal departments are trading bloated systems and manual processes for purpose-built platforms which offer data-backed insights and integrated workflows. With the right legal ops tools in place, legal teams of all sizes can move from reactive to proactive, from being viewed as bottlenecks to becoming true business drivers. 

What Are Legal Ops Tools, and How Do They Support Modern Legal Operations? 

At their core, legal ops tools are the systems, software, and strategies that enable in-house legal teams to become high-performing business units. Think of them as the infrastructure of modern legal operations. These are the tools that provide visibility, consistency, and control across legal workstreams. 

Whether it’s managing outside counsel, wrangling contracts, automating invoice approvals, or pulling performance analytics for the GC’s board presentation, these tools are doing the quiet heavy lifting so legal professionals can focus on lawyering, not logistics. 

And here’s the kicker: you don’t need to be a Fortune 100 to get started. Legal operations is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity, and modern legal operations help make that shift possible.

Top 5 Legal Ops Tools That You Can’t Live Without 

Not all tools are created equal. If you’re building out your legal ops tech stack as part of a modern legal operations strategy, start with these five. 

1. e-Billing & Spend Management 

Think of this as your financial GPS. Tools like Onit’s ELM e-billing help legal teams track every dollar spent, analyze outside counsel performance, and surface opportunities to switch from hourly billing to AFAs. It’s also a great way to build trust with finance by giving them exactly what they want: predictability. 

2. Matter Management 

No more mystery around who’s doing what, where, and by when. A matter management platform organizes caseloads, deadlines, documents, and stakeholders in one centralized space. Bonus points if it integrates with your other tools. Nobody needs another silo. 

3. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) 

From NDAs to MSAs to “we-needed-this-yesterday” custom deals, CLM tools accelerate contract review cycles, reduce risk, and bring visibility into every stage of the contract journey. 

4. Legal Service Requests & Intake 

Tired of email chaos and surprise fire drills? Legal intake tools are your “legal front door” and help standardize the way the business requests help, routes tasks, and automates common responses. Translation: fewer interruptions, more strategy. 

5. Analytics & Dashboards 

Legal teams are no longer the department of “no.” They’re strategic partners at the table. That means showing up with data. Modern legal operations depend on tools that deliver insights into spend, efficiency, and performance so you can speak the same language as your CFO. 

“We Have No Idea Where Our Legal Budget Is Going” 

That’s not just a stressful statement. It’s a red flag waving over your entire department. When legal spend is opaque and unpredictable, it creates ripple effects across the business. Finance loses confidence. Leadership starts asking hard questions. Legal’s seat at the strategy table starts to wobble. If you’ve ever found yourself scrambling to explain quarterly spikes or retroactively justifying outside counsel costs, it’s time to stop duct-taping your processes and start upgrading your foundation. 

This is where legal ops tools come in. The right tech stack doesn’t just help you track spend. It gives you the foresight to manage it. By consolidating billing data, enforcing guidelines, and surfacing actionable insights, modern tools replace guesswork with clarity. And in today’s fast-paced business environment, clarity is your most valuable currency. 

Chaos Isn’t a Strategy (But It’s Often the Default) 

You shouldn’t need a crystal ball to figure out where a contract is in the approval cycle or whether that vendor invoice was reviewed. But if your team is constantly chasing status updates across inboxes or relying on tribal knowledge to move matters forward, you’re not alone. You’re just stuck managing legal operations the way it used to be done. 

Legal ops tools solve this by creating structure around workflows. They help standardize intake, route requests based on urgency or risk, and give legal leadership the kind of performance metrics that other departments have had for years. No more managing legal like it’s 1999. No more spreadsheet heroics. Just a streamlined, connected way to run legal like a business unit… because that’s what it is. 

So if legal still feels like the team that slows things down instead of driving things forward, it’s not a people problem. It’s a tooling problem. And that’s fixable. 

Rethinking Legal Operations for a Modern Era 

Too often, legal operations has been synonymous with clunky systems and slow adoption. But today’s approach is different. It’s modular, agile, and built for the way legal actually works. Legal ops leaders aren’t looking for another layer of process. They’re looking for clarity, control, and cross-functional momentum. 

This evolution is particularly visible in how teams approach enterprise legal management. Not as a static system, but as a dynamic strategy. When powered by the right legal ops tools, modern legal operations become more than just a support function. They become a strategic engine that helps legal collaborate better with finance, support faster deal cycles with sales, and forecast resource needs before a crisis hits. 

This isn’t just a digital transformation for the sake of “change.” It’s legal, evolved and positioned to lead. 

Future-Proofing Legal: AI, Automation, and the Tools Ahead 

Legal ops tools aren’t static. As AI, NLP, and machine learning evolve, they’re rapidly being baked into legal operations platforms, making it easier to: 

  • Auto-classify incoming legal requests 
  • Flag risky contract language 
  • Review invoices for compliance 
  • Predict matter outcomes based on historical data 

In other words, your legal tech stack isn’t just about catching up. It’s about staying ahead. 

table with legal operations papers scattered on it

AI is already transforming the way legal work gets done. From invoice review to matter triage to contract risk scoring, legal ops teams are finding ways to scale their impact without scaling their headcount. And the best part? These tools are becoming easier to implement and easier to justify, especially when they show measurable ROI. 

For many teams, this next wave of modern legal operations is finally closing the gap between day-to-day legal work and enterprise legal management goals that once felt out of reach. 

What’s Your Move? 

The legal industry is transforming, and modern legal operations are the engine behind that evolution. Whether you’re a solo legal ops pro or part of a global team, investing in the right tools today will pay dividends tomorrow. Because at the end of the day, the best legal departments don’t just respond to change. They drive it. 

If you’re ready to take the next step, we’ve got two resources to help you get started. 

Step 1: Download our Legal Ops 101 One-Pager: A quick-hit guide to what legal ops is and why it matters. Perfect for busy GCs and legal ops leads needing a fast gut check. 

Step 2: Dive deeper with our Legal Operations 101 Whitepaper. This is a comprehensive, strategic blueprint for building and scaling a high-impact legal ops function. From hiring to tooling to cross-functional collaboration, it’s everything you need to chart the right course. 

Step 3: Already know what you need? Let’s talk. We’d love to hear what you’re solving for. 

ReviewAI Tools Revolutionized with ReviewAI Smart Checklists

Posted on May 11, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

It’s no secret that in-house lawyers have too much to do and too little time to do it, making contract review tools a necessity, not a luxury. So, how can contract AI help in-house lawyers? They often have a long list of what they want and need from AI and technology that includes:

  • Eliminating painful, repetitive and non-complex work
  • Freeing up time to focus on strategy and high-value work
  • Increasing the quality of contract review
  • Working faster and handling higher volumes of work

With these priorities in mind, Onit launched contract AI tool ReviewAI seven months ago. ReviewAI does the repetitive work that lawyers want to streamline so they can concentrate on more strategic contributions. It reviews, redlines and edits all types of contracts in less than two minutes, including NDAs, MSAs, SOWs, purchase agreements, employment agreements and more. In addition, its Microsoft Word Add-In enables lawyers to work the way they are accustomed to working.

Now, Onit has announced a substantial enhancement to ReviewAI – Smart Checklists. It’s contract AI that goes beyond alerts and does the work.

Keep reading to learn more, view a demo here or you can hear Jean Yang, Vice President of the Onit AI Center of Excellence, explain it in the latest episode of our Onit podcast.

Contract AI That Goes Beyond Alerts – It Does the Work

Smart Checklists, offered as part of the ReviewAI Word Add-In, evolves contract review tools by turning playbook checks into intelligent and collaborative tasks. It tracks what’s important, what to do next and what is done – all in an intuitive solution that requires no training.

How does it work? Open a contract, and ReviewAI has Smart Checklists ready to go.

As a result of this contract AI tool, lawyers save upward of 52% of their time on contracts, while legal teams improve consistency, lower contract risks and better support the business.

Making ReviewAI Tools Smarter

Lawyers have always worked off of some sort of checklist during contract reviews. The problem is that the lists often only exist on a piece of paper or in someone’s head. They’re static.

ReviewAI Smart Checklists uses AI to create checklists made up of concrete, task-based actions that are generated from your company playbook. Rather than going through the tedious undertaking of applying that playbook yourself, ReviewAI digitizes it for you automatically. If you need to break your contract review into multiple sessions, ReviewAI and its Smart Checklists remember where you left off and make it easy to keep track of where you are, what’s been done and what you still need to do.

How to Get Started with ReviewAI Smart Checklists

Onit’s ReviewAI Smart Checklists, a revolutionary approach for contract review tools, is available immediately.

To learn more, you can: