Are you a first legal hire and completely overwhelmed by the appalling state of your commercial contracts and processes?
Don't worry - I've been there.
The chronic workplace stress that in-house lawyers experience as a result of chaotic commercial contracting processes is especially bad for first-time legal hires.
But I think people also forget that lawyers aren't robots and have to look after their mental health too.
That's why I've put together this list of essential hacks you can get cracking on from day one to help you:
✔ Move fast
✔ Negotiate with more confidence
✔ Help the business generate revenue in time
✔ And most importantly, preserve your mental health.
Read on…
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🔸 Build a legal team playbook
Stick in all negotiation must-haves, nice-to-haves, hard no's, fallbacks, concessions. Build per clause - critical stuff first (indemnities; limitation of liability; IP).
Add a clause library too with relevant language to reflect all these.
🔸 Build a comments playbook
Always add comments explaining your changes. Especially dealbreaker clauses.
Keep sample language in your legal playbook, per clause, so you can cut and paste quickly.
Explain your position, concerns and rationale intelligently - don't just say "it's market"... because maybe it's not.
🔸 A word on MNDAS
Hated on (with good reason), but quick to review and 90% of the time don't need redlining so you can turn them fast.
Use them to build legal's reputation and relationships with sales- key to working through EOQ pressure
🔸 Be a good teacher
Bring AEs on the journey with you - they are managing the deal. Explain key changes you made and why. Tie the law to their business aim. The great ones genuinely appreciate this.
You are there to have their backs and guide them through the legal part of the deal cycle - this reduces EOQ friction.
🔸 Know the deal structure
Be clear on this early on:
Direct with customer?
Indirect through partner?
AWS?
Know your paperwork, correct terms and process to save time-wasting and faffing at EOQ.
🔸 Mandate one platform for comms
Pick a platform and stick to it. Even if it's email.
Communicating across multiple platforms creates version control issues and associated risks
You don't have time at EOQ to remember which platform the last version / instructions were in!
🔸 Plan ahead
Plan for Thanksgiving, December, public holidays (especially those sneaky ones they have in the US!) signatories and decision-makers may not be available. (Yes this is the AE's job, but be proactive with advance reminders.)
🔸 Talk about burnout
People don't get what lawyers do or how it affects us.
Make leadership aware of burnout and tell them what support you need if you are struggling. Think about outsourcing and automating repetitive, process-heavy work.
🔸 Leverage legal tech
CLM and intake tools can solve most of the issues in this guide that cause lawyer burnout at EOQ by replacing manual, process-heavy, repetitive workflows with automation and AI.
P.S. If you have any other pointers I'd love to hear them!
You’re invited! ITGC Tech Picks with Avokaado 🥑
ITGC Tech Picks cuts through the clutter with a one-hour product spotlight designed for busy in-house legal teams.
You’ll walk away knowing exactly what the tool does, who it’s for, and whether it’s worth your time.
We’re delighted to bring you Avokaado in this upcoming session - Avokaado is a contract intelligence platform that turns every document into structured data helping legal and business teams create, manage and analyze contracts in one secure workspace.
Curious about in-house practice or simply want to reach out?
Don't hesitate to reply to this email - I'm happy to help with any questions, no strings attached.
Let’s connect! 💜
by Sarah Irwin
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