How to assess a contract management process

Produced in partnership with Elizabeth Bourlet
Practice notes

How to assess a contract management process

Produced in partnership with Elizabeth Bourlet

Practice notes
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Now that you have developed a Contract management process (see Precedent: Legal contract management process), it is likely that your organisation will require you to measure the legal department’s Performance of the legal contract management process to monitor its Efficiency and effectiveness.

This Practice Note is designed to assist you to devise suitable performance measurement metrics.

Why assess?

The only way to ensure the business is operating efficiently is to establish clear goals, along with key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine whether those goals are being met. This is true regardless of which facet of the business is to be managed. Why should contract management, perhaps the most basic process of a legal department, be any different?

The difficulty with such metrics is that the legal contract management process is dependent on and affected by the actions and delays of Third parties, both within your organisation and outside it. Also, since contracts vary so much from one situation to the next in terms of risk or overall complexity, this makes it difficult to identify sensible KPIs

Elizabeth Bourlet
Elizabeth Bourlet


Elizabeth is an experienced, commercially-minded solicitor with a combination of professional and business qualifications. Elizabeth has a breadth and depth of experience gained from holding senior positions both in private practice and in significant corporate entities in a wide range of industries and sectors, including: retail ' a national garden centre group and a major national DIY group, luxury brands, manufacturing, the water industry, IT and the public sector. Elizabeth has a particular interest in drafting, negotiating and managing commercial contracts of all kinds: general terms and conditions of purchase and supply, supply of services, IT and major systems implementation, marketing, utility supplies, telecoms, supporting the rationalisation of suppliers and the establishment of cost effective group-wide initiatives, including outsourcing and insourcing. Preparation for GDPR has also been a key part of her recent assignments, as has Corporate Social Responsibility. Preparing businesses for sale by private equity owners, is a further specialisation of her, including advising on asset value maximisation, ensuring key contracts are in place, drafting policies and procedures to regularise corporate governance, preparing for due diligence, organising and populating data rooms and playing a key role in associated financial restructuring. Elizabeth has considerable experience of supporting the exploitation of brands worldwide, involving: preparing complex co-development arrangements, cross-licensing and distribution provisions; preparing detailed licensing, distribution and agency agreements; managing (and rationalising) a vast world-wide trade mark portfolio and dealing with infringement issues and new registrations. She is fully accustomed to working on long, medium and short-term contracts through her own company, Elizabeth Murray Solutions Limited.

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Key definition:
Contract management definition
What does Contract management mean?

The term ‘contract management’ strictly refers to the period after a contract has been executed and taken effect. Thus, it entails working to ensure that the terms and conditions contained within the contract are adhered to and that all of a party’s contractual obligations are met satisfactorily.

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