Why your legal team doesn't always need a Swiss army knife

(And what you need instead)

Picture this: You're the head of a growing in-house legal team. Things are getting busier, and you're starting to feel the pinch.

Maybe it's the flood of contract review requests, maybe it’s a feeling of chaos with the business bombarding you on Teams, email, Slack, as well as walking up to your desk, or maybe it’s a maternity leave cover who isn’t quite working out.

Whatever it is, you know something has to change.

The bottleneck

Most in-house legal teams can quite easily point to the root cause of the problem - let’s call it the bottleneck. And then go look for solutions to remove the bottleneck.

The difficulty is that often the solution to the bottleneck is wrapped up in a bigger solution, that solves a whole host of other potential problems, which the legal team may in fact not be facing.

Over the last 10 years a lot of point solutions have gone wide and have become big CLM solutions. The vendor’s thinking was, if we solve more problems we can charge more. It’s also stickier, customers are less likely to leave you in the future if your solution is powering all aspects of the legal team.

I’m not so sure it’s always in the in-house legal team’s interest though.

When CLMs aren’t the solution

For example, let’s say you have a problem around “intake and triage” of the work coming into the legal team. Almost every CLM solution will have a feature for that.

But to buy the solution you now you also have to change how your contracts are stored.

Or what if your bottleneck is around the volume of vendor contracts on the team’s plate. You might be looking for an AI solution that speeds up redlines (shameless plug: this is what DraftPilot does).

A lot of CLMs are now offering a Word Add-in for that. But again, you’re now needing to change intake, document storage and a whole host of other things to justify the high purchase price of the all-in-one solution.

What’s worse - a CLM implementation is a big process. It can often take 1-2 years, especially if your organisation isn’t prepared for it (here’s a CLM implementation horror story by a GC if you’re curious).

It also requires much more training of your team, as well as the business units who now also need to change how they interact with the legal team.

All of this means it’ll take much longer to fix your bottleneck than if you can find a smaller tool that only solves your problem, and nothing else.

The Power of Point Solutions

Instead of trying to boil the ocean, why not start by dipping your toe in? Here's how:

1. Identify Your Rate-Limiting Step: What's the one thing that's really slowing you down? Is it contract review? Document generation? Legal intake?

2. Look for Point Solutions: Once you've identified your main pain point, look for tools that address that specific issue. These point solutions are often cheaper, faster to implement, and easier to adopt. If they don’t work out, you also won’t be locked in as much.

3. Test and Iterate: Start small, measure the impact, and then decide if you need to expand.

Let's break this down with an example:

Say your team is drowning in contract review requests. You could:

Option A: Implement a full CLM system that handles everything from intake to signature. Cost: Six figures+. Implementation time: 6-12 months (if all goes well).

Option B: Try a targeted AI-powered contract review tool like DraftPilot. Cost: Fraction of a CLM. Implementation time: Same day.

With Option B, you're addressing 100% of your main pain point at probably 10% of the cost of Option A. Plus, you can start seeing benefits immediately, rather than waiting months for a complex system to be fully operational.

Where to start: Map Your Workflow

Wondering where to start? Grab a piece of paper (or open your favorite digital whiteboard) and sketch out your legal team's workflow. It doesn't have to be pretty - just get it down.

Now, look at that flow chart and ask yourself:

1. Where are the bottlenecks?

2. If you could wave a magic wand and fix one step, which would give you the biggest bang for your buck?

That's your 80/20 - the step where a small improvement could yield disproportionate benefits.

Then look for solutions that alleviate that step and feel free to ignore everything else. Sometimes you’ll even find there’s a feature in a tool you already have that does the trick.

The Bottom Line

Before you dive into a complex, all-encompassing solution, ask yourself: Do I really need a Swiss Army knife, or would a really good bottle opener do the trick?

Thanks for being here,

Daniel

CEO at DraftPilot
LinkedIn

PS I do acknowledge that sometimes buying a big CLM is the solution. If the legal team needs a major overhaul across all workflows and has the time, bandwidth and appetite (across the business) to do a lot of ‘change management’, then by all means go for it!