Contract lifecycle management meaning

Checklist This Checklist outlines essential compliance steps for law firms undertaking outsourcing, beginning when your firm initially contemplates entering an outsourcing agreement and continuing through to, and encompassing, all the post-agreement audit activities...

Before you can begin to take control of contract management in the legal department, you first need a clear view of how current commercial and legal processes function. Undertake a contract management audit that spans all stakeholders, resources, and processes across your organisation (including the legal team) affecting the lifecycle of contracts, from negotiation and drafting through to execution and management. This Practice Note sets out ways to run an audit of contract management and signals the topics you should probe during that exercise. Conducting the audit There are several approaches you could use to carry out an audit in your organisation: Impromptu hallway or office conversations Advantage: In smaller organisations, ad hoc chats may yield the information you need. Disadvantages: You must direct the discussion with targeted questions (see Precedent: Impromptu contract audit meeting questions for sample prompts); there is a risk of forming an incomplete picture. Run a workshop with...

This Practice Note sets out a clear overview of how UK and EU legal frameworks are developing to accommodate digital bonds. It explains key terminology and the digital bond transaction lifecycle, covering the principal documents needed for issuance, with emphasis on smart contracts. It also signposts what practitioners should consider when engaging in digital bond transactions. Summary Digital bonds are now legally recognised in the UK and EU, provided the issuance structure complies with the relevant securities regime, the Prospectus Regulation and/or Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA), and the underpinning distributed ledger technology (DLT) infrastructure falls within the scope of the competent regulator or sandbox. Practitioners should determine early whether an instrument is a native digital bond or a tokenised form of a traditional bond, as that choice shapes property law status, custody and settlement exposure, and undertake regulatory mapping at the structuring stage. In most digital bond models, smart contract code functions as the tool that executes agreed outcomes rather than the source of...

contract management ‘Contract management’ carries one meaning for your organisation and a subtly different one for you as an in-house lawyer. To do your job, you must grasp both senses and how they interact within the business. For the organisation, it describes procuring goods or services: scoping requirements, selecting an appropriate supplier, moving into the nuts and bolts of commercial negotiation and, ultimately, formalising the deal in documents. In some organisations, the lengthy drafting and agreement of those papers becomes an afterthought, readily handed off to the lawyer. When signatures are on the page, the real work of overseeing the contract begins, including assuring performance and compliance. These activities are often deprioritised until something goes awry and the legal team is asked to intervene. As an in-house lawyer, you will be involved, to a greater or lesser degree, at every stage of this organisational process. Yet, for you, ‘contract management’ also refers to controlling the passage of contracts through the legal department, namely: negotiation...

1 Goods/services Which kinds of goods and services are sourced in your area/department? Where can I find a list? 2 Contracting process Which contracting procedure is followed? Where can I obtain a contracting process workflow diagram? 3 Roles and responsibilities Within your area/department, who handles each stage of the contract lifecycle?...

1 Attendees: [ List attendees ] Each participant should attend the workshop fully ready to deliver a PowerPoint to the group, lasting no longer than [ insert, eg 20 minutes ], covering the following: categories of goods/services routinely obtained by that department; the end-to-end contracting workflow; each person’s function within that department across the contract lifecycle; how the central procurement team/organisational procurement process is used; contract templates relied upon; whether standard contract review/creation request forms are employed; where original agreements are physically retained; who executes contracts; what is currently in the immediate pipeline...