In-house legal: turn a contract portfolio into a decision

An in-house legal team receives supplier contracts, amendments and sometimes several negotiated versions. Procurement and management need to know which commitments depart from the company’s position and what needs a decision, rather than receive another long summary.

Start with the team’s playbook

Choose about twenty representative contracts, with conflicting versions and a missing clause. Define the points to check before the trial: term, renewal, liability, data, termination and exceptions specific to your business. A useful tool should show where it found each answer, identify what it could not find and let counsel correct the review grid.

Then request a short note for the business: issue, contract, departure from the playbook, risk and proposed option. Compare it with the source clauses. Test access rights, repeating the review after a new amendment and integration with your document store. A polished table that cannot support those steps merely shifts the checking work.

What to try with Jimini

Jimini’s analysis grids structure a review across documents using the team’s own questions. Its document library and Jimini for Word help bring a template into the next draft. The published collaboration with CMA CGM’s legal team includes M&A and procurement use cases; it does not predict the result on your contracts.

Judge the quality of the evidence, the time needed to correct the analysis and whether the work can be resumed at the next negotiation. The decision should make sense to the business and remain auditable by legal counsel.