I'm new to LegalOps (within the past 2 years) and I'm seeking advice on optimizing our contract intake process. Our organization has undergone significant growth through acquisitions, and we're struggling to balance user-friendly intake forms with the need for detailed information to facilitate efficient reviews and approvals.
Currently, we use three (3) workflows to manage various contract types. One is specific to anything incoming on counterparty paper, and the two others are specific to our templated NDAs.
Our intake form for submissions of agreements on counterparty paper has become relatively lengthy in order to accommodate the requirements of multiple stakeholders (e.g., Procurement, Vendor Management, Security, Privacy, Finance, and Legal) and contracting entities.
Despite my best efforts to make it user-friendly, we're receiving complaints about the length of our intake form as well as our turnaround times. Most of the questions are not required fields, as the workflow is for any type of agreement from an NDA to a MSA. So, although the intake form is long, all of the questions are used to some degree to trigger conditions and workflows for 33 different entities.
If any of you are willing to share, I'd appreciate:
1. Insights on the number of active workflows/intake forms you use.
2. Insights on the intake form design and number of questions.
3. Strategies for balancing user experience with stakeholder requirements to conduct review.
4. Suggestions for naming and organizing intake forms to ensure users select the correct one, and what you do if the user initiates the incorrect workflow for their particular contract.
5. Benchmarking data on average contract review turnaround times from submission to execution, particularly for organizations with 3 legal reviewers, with approximately 20-30 contracts executed weekly.
I'm hoping that your guidance will help me identify areas for improvement to optimize our contract intake process. Or, at the very least, will help to inform my responses with relevant comparable data to set appropriate stakeholder expectations.
If you'd be willing to share, but don't wish to do so in this forum, feel free to message me privately. I appreciate any information or thoughts you are comfortable sharing.
