Unbundling CLM

SimpleDocs CEO, Preston Clark, and DataStax Deputy General Counsel, Fiona Kaufman, recently presented a keynote opening session on Unbundling CLM at the Legal Innovators California conference in San Francisco.

After a failed CLM implementation, DataStax needed to quickly find a software solution to manage its growing volume of outbound NDAs.

DataStax implemented AutoNDA, powered by SimpleDocs, and in a matter of days streamlined their entire NDA process.

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Here are a few quotes from the keynote session: 

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Preston Clark: What did you find most challenging about implementing a full CLM?

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Fiona Kaufman: 

For us, implementing the CLM tool we chose, ended up being too cumbersome and an over scale for our legal and deal desk teams. We were looking for a solution to make reviewing and negotiating contracts easier, an easily searchable document repository, a clause repository; and the tool we implemented made everything twice as hard. People didn’t want to use it, and those that did were frustrated with the added time it took to use it. Adding to the challenge, we were unable to integrate into our current ticketing system.

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Preston Clark: Tell us about your decision to prioritize NDA automation after a failed CLM implementation.

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Fiona Kaufman: After we decided to pull the CLM, we actually did an audit of the legal tech we were using. We decided to focus on tasks that were repeatable and predictable, and tackling the NDA issue was the first to come to mind. Automating NDA’s allows us to free up time to spend on other issues, and it provides a self service mechanism for NDA’s. Before AutoNDA, agreements were sent manually to the team through an email alias and reviewed/redlined/returned. The DataStax NDA was not widely used and the platform allows for our paper to be utilized more often.

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Preston Clark: Let’s talk about implementation – comparing AutoNDA implementation to full CLM implementation – talk us through your experience with implementing AutoNDA. How long did it take? What was required of your team? What was required of your sales team?

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Fiona Kaufman: Implementation was very easy with the SimpleDocs team once they knew our process and requirements. We were able to implement our template with default settings which had approved alternatives for a few clauses, and set our signatories. Product problems and suggestions were taken into consideration and implemented right away.

Nothing was required of our Sales team, once we had the tool implemented, we added the link to our legal resource page on our intranet, shared the process with sales and other cross-functional teams, and now anyone can request an NDA instantly.

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