Have you noticed that every business has a designated legal department?
You must have seen those lengthy, thorough contracts when making deals or forming a relationship with a company. Well, that is partially why the legal industry exists!
In today’s economy, clients of law firms want the best of the best when making investments. Be it outsourcing legal research or looking for free legal case management software for lawyers, you must be asking, What is legal case management software? That is for another day.
For your law firm to achieve the best an efficient contract exchange experience. To do that you will need to either hire a lawyer or integrate legal contract management software in legal departments. This will help you avoid taking liability for contract mismanagement.
What is Legal Contract Management?
This is where Legal contract management walks in. Legal contract management is the process of managing everything related to contract management, from creating drafts to the signing of that contract.
Legal contract management consists of five phases:
- Drafting Contracts
- Negotiation
- Adherence
- Service Level Agreements
- Documentation
An efficient contract management process acts as an iron shield against various possible legal actions by fulfilling all the requirements on time and on point.
Let’s Talk About CLM and CRM
CLM stands for Contract Lifecycle Management, and its sole purpose is to deal with the whole contract-making process from start to finish. An efficient contract management lifecycle process will enable firms to provide a high-quality customer experience.
While contract management specifically focuses on the execution phase of a contract, CLM encompasses the entire lifecycle of a contract. At the end of the day, contract management for legal departments is a necessity for a firm to maintain a high standing in the global legal industry.
CLM is as important for legal firms as CRM (customer relationship management), but they both have completely different purposes.
Customer relationship management is the combination of multiple strategies, legislative practices, and technologies that enable the development and growth of client relationships.
CRM technologies enable law firms to track client information and manage it efficiently. For example, in law firm billing services, in a situation where follow-ups are dismissed and accounts receivable pile up, legal action needs to be taken where this information can come in handy.
While CLM looks over the customer’s journey from first contact, CRM manages customer engagement and focuses on sales and customer services.
| CRM Tools | CLM Tools |
|---|---|
| 1. Contact Management 2. Lead Scoring 3. Customer service tools 4. Sales management – visualizing sales process | 1. Draft and editing tools for contracts 2. E-signature capabilities 3. Control on updates to track changes in contracts 4. Performance tracking tools to monitor adherence to contract terms |
What is The Difference Between CRM and Contract Management?
A contract management system is a kind of software that manages the storage and flow of all contract-related data in one location. This makes it easier to be accessed by key people like clients, service providers, and within legal departments in a business.
Contract management systems enable law firms to create new contracts using pre-made templates, review contracts, and easily access large volumes of paperwork.
Meanwhile, CRM focuses on creating, developing, and growing well-maintained relationships with clients. It helps corporations schedule appointments, carry on continuous communications, and ensure client satisfaction. This will eventually result in the expansion of that business.
Both play their own important roles, they work together to provide unique features for a business’s growth.
Is Contract Management Part of ERP?
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a software system utilized by companies to manage core competencies of a business. ERP contract management simply is the process of drafting, negotiating, monitoring, and maintaining contracts within an ERP.
Now let us talk about which contract management software you could use?
10 Best Contract Management Software for Legal Departments
1. Contract Insight
CobbleStone Contract Management Software is known to be user-friendly and provides the following features: drafting contracts , email reminder, automated workflow, electronic signature, customizable fields, and more. It focuses on powerful search and reporting for easy contract analysis.
Pricing: 30 Day Free Trial – Pricing available on request
2. Zendoc
Founded in 2019, by Laurent Lathieyre and Olive Colle, Zendoc is a GenZ solution to enhance workflow using various features. It is a software that sorts and organizes data making it user-friendly and keeps you updated on your work priorities.
Pricing: Starts at $49 per month. The pricing varies depending on the features required.
3. Ironclad
Ironclad is known to be best to maintain a strong contract workflow, from start to finish.This software reduces the need for a legal strategic advisor by using AI for automatic data extraction for faster contract processing.
Pricing: 14-Day Free Trial. Get a Custom Quote on their website.
4. BlackBoiler
Blackboiler is a legal technology company that creates contracts efficiently. It is known for its AI-Powered Contract Review, which is the first to thoroughly review and revise contracts right in Track Changes. This feature ensures that companies can review and redline all of their inbound data swiftly.
Pricing: Available on request.
5. eBrevia
eBrevia is a contract management software that provides its customers with a user-friendly interface, an efficient contract analysis and a strong document analytics platform. eBrevia is known to be at least 10-60% more accurate than when reviewed manually.
Pricing: You can book a Demo. Pricing available on request.
6. Outlaw
Outlaw is the most flexible, cloud-based contract software according to Legal.io. They work based on priorities, redline and all, ensure all parties are informed. Outlaw stores and tracks their case files in their intelligent contract archive.
Pricing: Get in touch to know more on pricing.
7. Contract Works
Contract Works is a contract management software that offers an easy-to-use interface, and budget-friendly, transparent pricing starting at $600/month for unlimited users. This software can be used by firms of all sizes. A side the features the software will provide, you will get a team of dedicated expert support to help your business grow.
Pricing: Starting at $700/month for unlimited users, unlimited training, and 24/7 support.
8. ContractSafe
ContractSafe is an extremely user-friendly software, adding to that, it focuses on the security of contract-based data as confidentiality is a crucial clause for all. Few of the features of ContractSafe are: Email reminders to renew or cancel an important contract, the ability to search and find any document in seconds, and many more.
Pricing: Starting at $375/month (Prepaid Annually). Free Demo Available.
9. Lexion
Lexion provides advanced legal analytics and risk assessment capabilities for contracts. Here are some of the key features Lexion is known for: Streamlining workflow, scaling operations, simplified adoption, contract acceleration, and many more.
Pricing: Available on request.
10. Summize
Summize is a CLM software designed solely to unite legal teams and business stakeholders so everyone can improve their work performance when working with contracts. This makes the the contracting processes smoother and smarter, from drafting contracts to the repository.
Surmise is known to prioritize client experience over anything.
Pricing: Book a Demo. Available on Request.
How Will This Software Benefit Your Law Firm?
If you are still not sure whether to integrate contract management software in your legal departments?. Here are some without-a-doubt benefits of contract management software.
Increased efficiency as it streamlines workflow, improves organization, making it easy to access, and with automated workflows and follow-ups, errors and/or accounts receivables will be reduced.
With Contract management software, you can enhance client service experiences. With faster turnarounds, improved teamwork and risk reduction, clients will not only be satisfied with the services but also recommend your law firm for such efficiency.
Lastly, there is a visible financial benefit of those who have already integrated contract management into their law firms. Not only does it save cost by automating administrative tasks but also faster turnarounds leads to increased revenue which lastly leads to improved profitability.
How Challenging Will It Be to Implement a Contract Management System?
Integrating a contract management software into your every day activities such as law firm billing, will be a piece of cake. Many systems take a few days to implement.
From the data we have collected, it is said that executing a contract management system into a law firm takes approximately a week for a staff of 10 users.
Conclusion
In the end, Implementing contract management software in legal processes holds a great deal of advantages for a law firm. This will enhance the firm’s work performance, save costs, ensure client satisfaction through continuous communication, enables teamwork within departments and much more.
What more reason do you need.
Put down your pencils, decide on contract management software for your legal department and ready, set and go!
Rafia Alam Rowshni delivers a unique combination of legal knowledge and content creation talent using SEO Tools and SERP analysis. She has a solid background in public health and legal services and knows the complexities of the legal world. She can translate complex subjects into simple, concise, and entertaining information that audiences can actually use.
