A discussion with Legal Dive

In a recent interview with Legal Dive, Summize's CEO and Founder Tom Dunlop, discusses with Legal Dive's Robert Freedman on how a decentralised approach to Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), is the way forward for helping businesses increase buy-in for CLM solutions.

Within the discussion, Tom delves into how embedding contract management tools directly into the platforms that legal teams and business colleagues already use, like Slack, Teams, or Gmail, can significantly improve efficiency and user experience.

Rather than forcing users to switch to a separate web application for tasks like contract drafting and redlining, a guided chat function within the workspace can dynamically build contracts based on user input.

This streamlined process reduces the need for legal intervention, particularly for routine agreements like NDAs, while offering a controlled experience for the legal team. More complex contracts can be managed by integrating the company’s playbook, enabling the tool to flag problematic clauses and suggest compliant alternatives.

This approach, even though the best way forward, may seem daunting at first, so Tom suggests that legal teams start small - perhaps with NDAs - and then gradually expand the CLM tool's use to more intricate transactions. No matter how small you start, the entire contract lifecycle, from drafting to signature, is still tracked and organised, with customisable safeguards and approval processes for more oversight.

Explore even more insights from Tom and Legal Dive by reading the full article.