Why contract management fails without process discipline
How one legal team rebuilt a chaotic CLM into a reliable system of record.
đ Hey there, Iâm Hadassah. Each week, I unpack how in-house legal teams use AI to enable the business, protect against risk, and free up time for the work they enjoy mostâwhat works, what doesnât, and the quick wins that make all the difference.
Before we dive in, a quick note: this is just one example of a legal team solving an operational bottleneck. There are plenty of ways to approach these kinds of problems, and the right solution will always depend on your specific needs and context. My goal is to give you some food for thought as you define what that solution should be.
Problem
Joining us today is the Legal Ops Manager at a public GreenTech company. When they stepped into the companyâs CLM for the first time, they found more than 5,000 files scattered across the repositoryâduplicates, missing metadata, irrelevant uploads, and years of unmanaged clutter.
Key documents were misplaced or mislabeled, making search unreliable and reporting impossible. Across the business, teams were flying blind: procurement missed renewals, finance couldnât reconcile spend, compliance lacked visibility into obligations, and even basic questions triggered hours of digging.
The issue wasnât the CLM, it was the foundation beneath it. Years of ad-hoc uploads, no naming or metadata standards, and workforce turnover had turned the repository into a dumpster fire. Like many failed implementations, the system had been treated as a one-time project instead of a living asset, slowly mirroring the broken processes it was meant to fix.
When the GC requested a renewal exposure report and the team couldnât produce it, the problem became impossible to ignore. The legal team faced a clear but daunting task: rebuild order from chaos and restore the CLM as a single source of business intelligence.
Solution
Amid the chaos, the team chose to keep Lexion as their CLMânot because it was perfect, but because fixing the processes around it would unlock its value. The goal was clearcut: turn a 5,000-contract repository into a searchable, reliable system for daily reporting. Over six to eight months, thatâs exactly what they did.
They kept the scope tight, standardising contract metadata to power search, renewal tracking, and core reports without overwhelming the team. Cleanup happened in phases, starting with the top 20â25 customer MSAs to show progress. Duplicates were removed, outdated documents archived, naming conventions unified, and metadata limited to 8 fieldsâŠ
title;
counterparty;
effective date;
expiration date;
renewal terms;
notice period;
contract type; and
contract value.
⊠just enough to enable core business functions: search, renewal tracking, and reporting.
Cross-functional sessions with Procurement, Finance, HR, and others ensured the rebuild reflected real business needs. And to prevent backsliding, the Legal Ops Manager established a simple habit: two hours every Friday to review new contracts, verify metadata, and run spot checks, turning maintenance into muscle memory.
Results
The repository was rebuilt into a usable system of record after years of unmanaged clutter.
The cleanup restored full contract visibility, enabling renewal tracking, preventing unwanted auto-renewals, aligning spend with contract terms, and giving the business clear access to key obligations for the first time.
The enhanced data model enabled search, analysis, and reporting without unnecessary complexity.
Process
Cleaning up the CLM started with one principle: focus.
Instead of fixing everything at once, the Legal Ops Manager first stopped new chaos from entering the system by standardising intakeâone request path, consistent naming, and limited metadata.
With the front door under control, they rebuilt the system foundation using just eight core metadata fields, enough to answer 80% of business questions and restore basic reporting. Contracts were cleaned in batches, duplicates removed, outdated files archived, and approval flows mapped so automation could work predictably. Lightweight playbooks and clear ownership ensured every contract had a home and a manager.
The real work, however, was human. With years of institutional knowledge loss and scattered documents, the Legal Ops Manager ran short, live conversations across Sales Ops, Finance, HR, Marketing, R&D, Supply Chain, and others to track down missing contracts, clarify ownership, and rebuild trust. By resisting pressure to over-engineer the system and sticking to a simple, consistent model, the cleanup stayed on track.
Finally, training sessions and controlled access helped teams use the system correctly, while a weekly two-hour review kept it healthy long term. In the end, disciplineânot new technologyâturned their CLM into a reliable business resource.
Quick Wins
What made this work wasnât a shiny new piece of tech. It was the way the team approached the problem as well as the messy middleâactively listening to the business, ruthless prioritisation, and consistent discipline. Getting a new workflow off the ground is rarely about one big moment of success. More often, itâs about the small, practical wins that build momentum and keep a project moving forward.
For this legal team, those wins looked like:
Targeted cleanup. The project began with the top 20 customer contracts, tagged with eight key metadata fields to create a small expiration report that quickly proved value to Procurement and the leadership team.
Live discovery conversations. Instead of relying on surveys or email chases, the Legal Ops Manager met directly with stakeholders across Sales Ops, Finance, Marketing, HR, R&D, and Supply Chain, uncovering missing contracts, clarifying ownership, and building cross-departmental trust.
Consistent naming and intake alignment. New naming conventions were introduced across teams, linking intake to the repository and preventing future disorganisation by keeping all uploads consistent and searchable.
A simple maintenance habit. A two-hour weekly review routine became the quiet force behind long-term control, catching small errors early and preventing the chaos from returning.
Now itâs your turn. If your team is dealing with something similar, I hope this story sparks a few practical ideas you can put to work.
And⊠if youâve been through something similarâor solved a different operational challenge altogetherâIâd love to hear your story and spotlight your win.