The stages of the contract lifecycle
- Request and drafting: a business user raises a request and drafts the agreement from an approved template.
- Approvals: the draft moves through an approval matrix based on value, type or department.
- Legal review: the legal team reviews clauses, negotiates changes and checks for risk.
- Execution: the final version is signed, increasingly through e-signature.
- Repository: the signed agreement is stored with its metadata, versions and a unique reference.
- Obligations and renewal: dates and obligations are tracked so renewals, addenda and closures happen on time.
Why spreadsheets and email stop working
Without a CLM system, nobody can say with confidence which version is final, who approved it, or when it expires. Templates drift, approvals are skipped, and renewals are discovered after the deadline. Audits become a search through inboxes.
How Gen AI changes contract review
Gen AI is most useful where legal teams spend the most time: reading. A modern CLM can draft clauses from templates and company rules, flag missing or non-standard clauses before approval, summarise long agreements, extract financial highlights, and read scanned images through OCR. The lawyer stays in control; the AI removes the first hour of every review.
What to look for in a CLM system
- Admin-defined templates so business users draft from approved language.
- A configurable, multi-level approval matrix.
- Clear roles for requesters, approvers, the Legal Head and Legal Officers.
- E-signature integration, such as DocuSign.
- A searchable repository with version history and a unique ID per agreement.
- Alerts for renewals and expiries, and reports you can export.
Getting started
Begin with your highest-volume agreement type, such as NDAs or vendor contracts. Standardise the template, define the approval matrix, and move that one workflow into the CLM before expanding.
Converge Lego supports template-led drafting, an approval matrix of up to 10 levels, Legal Head and Legal Officer workflows, Gen AI-assisted review, DocuSign signature and renewal tracking.