Robert Ambrogi Blog
Building on its acquisition last year of the contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform Parley Pro, LexisNexis is today announcing the integration of Parley Pro’s CLM capabilities to its cloud-based CounselLink enterprise legal management solution for corporate legal departments.
CounselLink is also today introducing work intake features designed to facilitate the submission and management of legal requests coming in to the legal department from anyone within the company.
Together, these new capabilities will enable corporate law departments to better prioritize legal requests, collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, streamline the entire contracts process, and enhance strategic resource planning and decision-making, LexisNexis says.
During a preview last week, Aaron Pierce, CounselLink’s vice president of product management, and Amy Nelson, sales solution architect, gave me a demonstration of the new capabilities.
Contract Lifecycle Management
LexisNexis says that its goal with the CLM integration is to enable CounselLink customers to expedite contract authoring, streamline contract negotiation, and analyze executed contracts.
“A number of other ELM providers in the marketplace have different levels of contract lifecycle capabilities,” Pierce said, “but one of our goals was to be able to build out an integrated CLM technology that really provides a tighter connection and a more seamless experience than what we’ve seen with other ELM providers that tend to have more of a bolt-on feel to them.”
To take advantage of the integration, a legal department will need to have subscriptions to both CounselLink and Parley Pro. Those who do will now see a “Contracts” tab within their CounselLink dashboard. Clicking that tab takes the user seamlessly into Parley Pro, and switching back to CounselLink is as easy as clicking a different tab.
Marking up a contract draft from within CounselLink.
When the user clicks into the CLM integration, the user can see both in-progress contracts and executed contracts. For the latter, the system shows key information such as signature dates, effective dates, expiration dates and renewals, as well as general metrics. A user can set up custom notifications, so that, for example, a notification to take a specified action is sent when a certain data approaches.
The CLM system also manages the creation, negotiation and execution of contracts. Business owners within the company can request contracts through the system and the system will track the drafting and redlining process. Once the contract is ready, the system integrates with DocuSign and Adobe Sign for electronic signatures.
Work Intake Capability
The work intake feature is designed to allow anyone within a company who needs help from the the legal department to submit the request and enables the legal department to review and triage requests.
The core element of the feature is a form that allows anyone to request work from the legal department. The forms can be custom configured by the legal department and adapted for specific types of issues, such as employment. The form can be hosted separately from CounselLink, such as on a corporate SharePoint, which means the person making the request does not require access to CounselLink.
The system can be set up so that incoming work requests can be directed to specific teams or individuals within the legal department, based on the nature of the request, or can be assigned as tasks. Intakes can allow for comments and messaging within the department and with the requestor. All activity is logged.
Completed intakes can be marked closed or those requiring additional work can be converted to matters.
Intake requests can be managed via a dashboard.
An intake analytics dashboard allows the legal department to see an overview of analytics on all intakes, so the department can easily see data such as how many intakes it handled, who owns them within the department, how many convert to matters, and similar information.
“This is step one,” Pierce said. “We’re also working on continuing to enhance both the ELM and the CLM capabilities as we go forward.”
Among the enhancements coming down the road are integrated content from LexisNexis Practical Guidance, such as checklists and drafting notes, as well as integrating with Microsoft for drafting directly within Word.
“CounselLink’s integrated approach to CLM and ELM demonstrates our vision and commitment to creating a ‘connected world’ for corporate legal, delivering significant workflow and cost efficiencies and impactful insights through the thoughtful application of our data, content and technology,” Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO of LexisNexis North America, UK and Ireland, said in a statement provided by the company.