Case Study: Contract Management System for Biotech Company

The Client

A publicly traded, late-stage biotechnology company based in Ireland and San Francisco, focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of certain innovative protein immunotherapies.

The Challenge

The Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel recognized that the company needed a formal contract management program. At the time, the client had limited contract tracking functionality in the form of a manually-updated Excel spreadsheet. The company did not have:

• A central contract repository
• Workflow tools to track contracts from the date requested through the date executed
• Tools to expedite the drafting of contracts through use of:
• Templates
• Workflow rules
• Standard clause and provisions libraries
• The ability to create automated, custom reports

The client wanted a contract management system that would both meet its current needs and provide the scalability to accommodate its anticipated growth curve. The client engaged Major, Lindsey & Africa's Managed Legal Services team to assist in the selection and implementation of its first contract management system.

The Approach

The Managed Legal Services team began by following its proprietary requirements methodology, which guides clients through an extensive scoping process including:

• Interviewing members of the legal department
• Interviewing members of the business units
• Interviewing members of the IT department
• Reviewing samples of standard contracts
• Examining any current contract management or tracking system
• Reviewing the company's growth and business plans to understand its future needs

The Managed Legal Services team's detailed approach allows for the collection of necessary information to identify contract management system providers that can potentially meet the client's specific needs. In this case, the team identified a pool of potential vendors for the client to vet.

In advance of the sessions, the Managed Legal Services team created a standard presentation "script" to ensure that the selected vendors presented their capabilities to the client in a uniform way. Similarly, the team developed a standard scorecard for the client to evaluate the potential vendors using the same criteria.

The Solution

The vendors that matriculated to the next round made additional presentations specific to the client, while the Managed Legal Services team advised on the comparative fit to make the final selection. The team then negotiated the licensing and fee agreement for the client and oversaw the implementation of the system.

The Result

The client now has a fully-deployed contract management system in place. It has moved all of its legacy agreements into the new system and is using best-in-class tools and workflows to draft and manage contracts going forward.