No one wants to learn another tool. Nobody. I’ll admit, that includes me. Yep, and I work at a legal technology company.
This was my first time attending the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) Global Institute in Las Vegas and the first time Lexion made its appearance at CLOC (thanks, COVID). As a CLOC newbie and one of about 200 contract lifecycle management (CLM) providers there, I was delightfully surprised to find a packed and standing room-only Lexion demo session. Why was it packed? Because the session was titled “I’m Not Learning Another Tool.”
OK, I’m kidding about the 200 figure, but also not kidding. I was overwhelmed when I entered the CLOC vendor exhibit area. From the generic booth banners all the CLM providers sounded the same: contract generation, redlining, reminders, etc. But one thing really stood out: they all require significant change management to get adoption from the rest of the company.
And guess what, this is why CLMs so often fail! Don’t take my word for it, see what Gartner, Law.com, and countless other teams say. In fact, this was a major concern in nearly all conversations I had, and even on the final panel hosted by Jason Barnwell (CLOC Board Member, General Manager for Digital Transformation of Microsoft’s legal department, former colleague, and old friend).
I’m not even a little surprised that implementation and adoption are the bane of CLMs. But it’s also why I’m so energized about our core approach at Lexion, and why CLOC attendees were so delighted with it too. We’ve built a system that is invisible to the rest of the company: all they have to do is email in a request like they normally do.
Sound too good to be true? Read on and you’ll see how real and valuable this is to our customers.
Lexion’s CLOC Sessions
Demo Session - “I’m not Learning Another Tool: The Importance of Minimal Change Management in Legal Tech.”
I understand now why our demo session, our technology, and title resonated with CLOC attendees after countless conversations with legal ops professionals from companies of different industries and sizes – lack of adoption was expressed over and over and over and over as a pain point.
These professionals have trauma from (a) spending years (yes, you read that right, YEARS!) working on implementing a CLM, and (b) then spending up to 50% of their time on an ongoing basis to maintain the CLM and also train others to use that CLM. So. Much. Pain.
We provided a live Lexion demo that showed that sales never had to leave Salesforce, Slack, or email to engage with legal, check the status of their deal, or find a contract. The audience loved what they saw so much, I did a bad mom dance.
Here’s a pic of the standing room only Lexion demo session where the audience was very engaged and didn’t leave early (I know, big shocker).
Session #2 – “Measure What Matters: How to be a Strategic and Data-Driven Legal Team”
Word quickly spread that Lexion “gets it” and our next CLOC session was even more crowded than the demo session the day before.
In our next session called “Measure What Matters: How to be a Strategic and Data-Driven Legal Team” I jokingly described this session as group therapy. Our fantastic panelists, Aaron Kornblum (Global General Counsel at BYJU’s FutureSchool) and Michael Leman (Deputy General Counsel at Fox Factory) shared their key lessons from their CLM misses and wins and what they measure for success.
It’s simple: what do you do, how much, and how quickly (thanks Michael for keeping it short and sweet).
When Michael said, “At Fox Factory, we have over 90% adoption of Lexion,” and Aaron said, “I rolled out Lexion to my global company with over 1,000 employees with just one email,” I heard some ooooohs and awwwws from the large audience.
Why? Folks, that’s the effectiveness of Lexion’s no change management, email-driven approach. The rest of the company really doesn’t have to learn another tool, which is key to adoption. I promise I didn’t ask (or pay) Aaron and Michael to say these things about Lexion and its impact on their organizations, but the impact is real and the audience could hear that authenticity too.
My biggest takeaways from CLOC:
- Adoption is key, without it, there’s no CLM: “failure to launch”, “we’ve been implementing for a year”, and “nobody in our company uses it despite all the training” are such common refrains, that most legal ops professionals are fearful of CLMs. Without adoption, there is no CLM cake to eat.
- Lexion’s “just email it in” approach is a killer weapon: The response to our panels overwhelmed our booth at CLOC, with legal ops pros genuinely interested in seeing it in action. They get that this is what will actually make a CLM successful, and love that Lexion just gets it.
- Legal Ops are Unsung Heroes: Legal ops professionals are mission critical to running a successful legal department and business. I know I couldn’t do all that I do at Lexion without Krysta Johnson, Lexion’s Sr. Legal Ops Manager.
- I’m not a Spring Chicken: Going to Las Vegas is very different when you’re in your 40s than your early 20s. I opted for a Cirque Du Soleil show and quiet dinners over clubs. For a longer list of fun and informative takeaways, check out my LinkedIn post and injury (to be clear, I was sober when I obtained such injury).
Thank you to the CLOC team for organizing a memorable event. The Lexion team can’t wait to attend next year. Oh, and if you want a system that just works out-of-the-box, let us know and you won’t be disappointed. Watch our CLOC booth video to learn more about Lexion.
