A CounseltoCounsel, July 2006 at 7 interview of the legal manager of a Polish subsidiary of SABMiller describes that legal department’s contract handling system.
The key individual is the Contract Originator (CO). “The CO works from a cover sheet submitted by the requesting manager; shares the submitted information with appropriate authorizing parties for budget, tax and legal authorization; sends the hard copy of the contract and a cover sheet to appropriate managers for final signatures; and forwards signed copies to the company’s internal service center for scanning.”
I have already taken the position that the law department should not be the shepherd for contracts. That service is quasi-legal work.
For more on contacts, see my posts in 2005 of March 18 about law departments managing contracts, April 18 on abolishing mandatory contract review by the law department, Aug. 31 on setting standard terms, Sept. 17 on setting minimum requirements for legal department review, Oct. 10, 2005 on Roamware and its contract compliance database, Oct. 20 on contract management software, Oct. 26 on contract managers not in the law department, Dec. 3 for 30 productivity techniques that help with contracts, and Dec. 9 (#2) on a contracts consultant.
In 2006, see my posts of Jan. 4 about contract life-cycle software, Jan. 3 as to contract process review, Jan. 6 that considers contract cycle times and tricks Navigation Technology uses with contracts, April 27 about how your law firms can help with your contracts, May 5 on contract administrators and Convergys, May 16 about the misperception that all in-house lawyers do is review contracts, June 7 about legal approval of contracts, June 16 on online acceptance of contracts, and June 19 about streamlining aspects of contracts.