On today's episode of The Contract Lens Podcast Becky Holloway, VP of Marketing at Malbek, chats with Lucy Bassli, Founder and Principal at InnoLaw Group, about the contract management performance metrics every legal department should be tracking. Lucy begins by pointing out that when it comes to contracts, domain expertise is essential. However, many lawyers tend to be cautious about legal tech and this is equally problematic. She gives her best tips for helping legal professionals overcome that fear and keep from being left behind. At the same time, she urges Legal Ops to realize that tech is not always the answer. With her infectious good humor and energy, Lucy dispels some of the biggest legal tech hype out there (no, robo lawyers are not coming for your jobs!) and shares very practical advice on what top 3 contract management metrics every legal department needs to know like the back of their hand. Hint: the ultimate goal for legal departments is to use contract data to inform substantive decision-making. So grab a glass of wine, and let's talk contracts!

When you live in an RV half of the year, like I do (check out my last blog post for some context), conserving resources is more than an environmental choice. I try to organize everything I do based on how much it will save me in time, aggravation, and cost. That means I'm always looking for the fewest steps and miles to drive, the least amount of water, propane, power, gas to consume. I mean, I only do my dishes once a day. It's not because I hate doing the dishes (which I admit is true, but not my point), but because it saves water, work, and future problems from arising.

On today's episode of The Contract Lens Podcast Allison Martyn, a Business Analyst at Malbek, talks with Samir Bhatia, CEO at Brightleaf Solutions, about everything you need to know when migrating your legacy contracts. Samir walks through the practical steps involved when you're staring at boxes of paper contracts or files in a share drive and need to get them into a new CLM system. He explains what OCR is and why contract migration will never involve just passing a bunch of files to a consultant and getting back a spreadsheet. He also gives his best recommendation for when to start thinking about contract  migration and why data extraction is the most cumbersome part of the whole process. You'll want to listen to this gem of an episode full of great advice for any company contemplating contract migration, especially for Samir's story about migrating a handwritten contract in cursive from 1862! So grab a glass of wine, and let's talk contracts!

“Our solution started failing because we did not know how to grow the tool with our business.”
– Shelfware Client

Today we continue our series on Contract Management Shelfware and turn our attention to the topic of how older CLM solutions require so much training to use that they are difficult to use without hours and hours of practice.

Welcome to another installment of our series "You ask. We answer" where we answer some of the most common questions that come from people like you. So, let's get started!

Can You Help Me Better Align Sales and Legal?

When I think of opposition I think of a few scenarios: a fox versus a hound, a parent versus a toddler angling for more dessert, Don Lemon versus Sean Hannity, and, ultimately, Sales versus Legal. Let’s face it. The goals of Sales and Legal are in natural opposition, but that isn't always a bad thing. Just like we don’t expect Sean and Don to have a nice balanced give and take when discussing politics, we expect organic friction between Sales and Legal in the course of getting a contract to signature.

There was a time not that long ago when contracts where simply an instrument of agreement between two or more parties and lived happily in a shared folder without any visibility; but that is no longer the case today. Contracts sit at the heart of business.

Outside of my day job at Malbek, I have a side hobby making cakes. As I was sorting through some of my cake pictures, I realized there’s a lot of similarities between making a fancy cake and configuring software.

Many people who are on their first CLM solution, sometimes referred to as first-generation CLM users, struggle to take the plunge and switch from their out-of-date current CLM to something modern and functional.