Contract management is a tedious but essential process that consists of seeing contracts through from their inception till their termination or renewal. If you think your job is done after the contract is signed, then you’re very wrong. Contract administration includes taking care of contracts after they’ve been signed, monitoring risk, and keeping track of deadlines, contract analysis.
Many tasks in contract management are purely administrative, very routine, and boring. No lawyer likes to spend their time proofreading and editing contracts, marking deadlines in their calendar, or emailing their colleagues reminders about upcoming tasks. That makes contract administration a process nobody really enjoys. Here are some tips you can use to make it less of a boring routine in your firm!
Writing software
Legal writing software can’t help you every step of the way, but it’s sure helpful during contract drafting. You still have to do the writing yourself, but you can avoid spending hours looking through contracts to find two typos and one misspelled name. Besides checking for errors, writing software can point out formatting inconsistencies and suggest changes that you can implement with a few clicks.
Templates and best practices
Contract writing can be quite a lengthy process. One way to speed it up is through using templates. If you’ve written a contract that has worked for you before, what’s stopping you from using it (or parts of it) again and again? The use of templates in contract drafting is encouraged, as it helps you avoid mistakes. A clause that’s been checked by a number of lawyers and computer programs should be more reliable than any new clause you can write today.
When working with templates, always make sure that the parts you’re extracting are still up-to-date. There is even artificial intelligence technology that can do that for you!
Cloud-based storage
A big part of contract management is storage. People often argue over methods of organization. Of course, everybody thinks their approach is the best, but it’s not unless it can be used by the whole firm efficiently. Thus, investing in an effective Cloud-based solution for organization and storage can make a big difference to the way you run your firm.
Cloud-based solutions enable document retrieval through searches with different criteria. If you want to find a document on your computer, you need to know its exact name or location. With a cloud storage solution, you can use criteria like “type of contract” and others. Think about it; is your current organization system working? What’s the point of storing a document if you can’t find it a week later?
Contract management software
If you can only pick one technological solution for your contracts, you should go with a contract management program. Contract management programs are wholesome solutions that help you take care of contract administration from start to finish. Automation plays a significant role in the effectiveness of such programs.
Your job consists of uploading contracts to the program and inputting some essential information. Then, the software can take care of the administration. For instance, it can send you and your colleagues alerts when there is a task that’s nearing its deadline. This way, you don’t have to reach out to your colleagues individually. It can also alert you when a contract is nearing the end of its life so that you can take action regarding possible renewal.
Compliance is another big issue with many contracts. One of the easiest ways to ensure contract compliance is by employing contract management software. Intelligent AI software can assess risks and find areas that may cause problems in the future. That can save you lots of time and money. Monitoring compliance to match the current legal system and assessing risks is nearly impossible to do manually. Relying on technology, in this case, is much more efficient.
