Contract Management – why should we care about it in a legal firm or department?

In companies, we often forget that almost everything we do is connected with contracts. If we communicate internally with employees, we execute employment contracts. If we want to get into relationship with new client we have to initiate, author, negotiate, and conclude (approve) the contract and later execute, revise, audit, renew or exit from it. These are all contract management stages. If we do it properly our company is more efficient and more customer (stakeholder) – friendly.

Legal process of contracting begins with initiating of the agreement we want, or we are requested to prepare. To do it properly we have to consider which type of contract suits our processes and company’s position.

If we are a start-up going to thrive and we are looking for increasing revenues, we should not take into consideration all the risks related to contractual relationship, we should simplify documents and processes of negotiations. If we are a mature corporation in a regulatory environment, we do the opposite. So is with our processes – if we work using agile methods and do not have a detailed scope of work, we cannot sign a project contract but a service agreement.

However, if we work on the specific product using waterfall method, we define the scope of works very precisely and wish to get a full responsibility for product’s quality from our partner, we can order or accept to complete a specified project for a fixed remuneration.

This is the first process related to contract management operations. It has to be well-prepared. If we fail to do it, we either fail to find a client because market recognizes we do not know it, or finally sign a contract not suitable for our company or your scope of work. If we succeed, we easily move on to the next stage of contract management which is contract preparation.

Author:

Michał Jackowski (professor of law, lawyer, Partner in DSK Kancelaria)

Last Updated on March 12, 2021 by Karolina Ampulska