The explosion of contracts in a legal department can seem nearly impossible to handle, but at Legalweek 2025, in-house counsel discussed finding the right tools and teams to better contain the issue
NEW YORK 鈥� Think about the number of agreements you sign in a day. It could be a privacy agreement when signing up for a new website, a services agreement when signing up for a lawn care service, even signing for the check when out at a restaurant. The vast number of agreements that a single person makes in a single week, or month, or year can be staggering.
Now scale that up to an entire company. Take pharmaceutical company Organon, for instance. In 2021, Organon was spun off from pharma giant Merck, and suddenly its much smaller legal department had to learn how to handle contracts 鈥� and lots of them. Organon had pre-existing agreements in 37 different countries, all in different formats, and needed to figure out how to simplify and consolidate this hoard of contracts.
鈥淣obody knows where anything is 鈥� for every template we have, there are probably 10 to 15 versions of that template floating around,鈥� recalls Stacy Lettie, Chief of Staff to the General Counsel at Organon. 鈥淭hat in itself creates an inefficiency that is so hard to overcome, it鈥檚 almost a little daunting.鈥�
However, even the greatest challenges can be overcome. At , Lettie and Jamal Brown, Head of Legal Operations and Knowledge Management at JPMorgan Chase, explain how to simplify the complex when it comes to managing the explosion of contracts.
Their takeaway: Such as in life, it takes a village 鈥� and this village includes a combination of people plus technology.
The right tool for the job
Originally, Lettie and the Organon team had a mostly manual process to try and compare and contrast contract templates. At one point, she says, the team took over a whole conference room, printed out as many templates as they could find, and sorted them into piles that could be compared against one another.
Now however, she says that technology provides another option, and it鈥檚 just a matter of finding the right tool for the job. 鈥淲e need to lean into the technology to solve that inefficiency because that is one of the most solvable problems that we have in contract management,鈥� Lettie explains. 鈥淏ut also, it doesn鈥檛 need to be perfect, it doesn鈥檛 need to be a template that solves everything. Let鈥檚 make it good enough.鈥�
Indeed, AI technology is becoming a regular starting point for tasks 鈥� in fact, 82% of corporate C-suites report having used AI as a starting point for tasks, according to data from 抖阴成年鈥� 2024 Future of Professionals Report.
However, not all technology is created equally, the Legalweek panel warns.
Brown says that at JPMorgan, for example, the team has experimented with two separate AI tools for contracting 鈥� and gotten two very different results. The first he called 鈥渁 Cadillac, it was best-in-class and every feature and functionality.鈥� However, it provided a number of solutions to problems the department didn鈥檛 necessarily have. In response, the legal department decided to develop 鈥渁 smaller, medium-value solution that does one thing really well.鈥� And because this solution attacks a single problem, it has been a better value.
鈥淢y recommendation is, don鈥檛 boil the ocean in the first instance that you build,鈥� Brown notes.
The people side of contract tech
With so many different types of contracts to deal with, however, technology is not the only consideration. Brown and Lettie also discussed how to balance standardization and customization 鈥� and importantly, how to make attorneys feel empowered to prioritize what鈥檚 important.
Lettie notes that at Organon, the legal department does not actually own the contracting processes, the business side does. The legal team gives the templates and the playbook, but at times, those templates are not always followed, and the business side accepts the client side鈥檚 contract as the basis of the agreement.
What results is not a technological question, but a business one. 鈥淚 felt that our younger lawyers in particular didn鈥檛 feel empowered,鈥� Lettie says. 鈥淭hey had no basis to say, 鈥楴o, I鈥檓 not going to review that.鈥欌��
“We need to lean into the technology to solve that inefficiency because that is one of the most solvable problems that we have in contract management; but also, it doesn鈥檛 need to be perfect, it doesn鈥檛 need to be a template that solves everything. Let鈥檚 make it good enough.鈥�
In this case, she explains, tying contracting decisions to the business at large has helped her adopt a strong stance in dealing with the business. 鈥淭here are certainly things you need to guard against, but honestly, if your non-disclosure is eight years versus three years, who knows, who cares?鈥� she says, adding that it鈥檚 not worth an attorney鈥檚 time when they need to provide value to the business. 鈥淩eviewing an NDA is not any value to anybody.鈥�
And it鈥檚 in these kind of human-centric decisions in which technology can play a valued-added role, especially as this technology continues to evolve. 鈥淭here is no reason to even really be having that my paper/your paper discussion,鈥� Lettie notes. Today, contract technology can take a template, turn it into a playbook, and put it against that third-party contract. 鈥淚t comes in, it goes in the engine, you get a comparison, you sign it, or you don鈥檛, and you move on with your day. It shouldn鈥檛 take longer than 30 minutes.鈥�
Brown agrees, noting that in evaluating solutions, he comes back to the question: 鈥淲hat do I want my lawyers to be working on? Working on a multi-million-dollar M&A deal, or working on a single paper?鈥�
To help free up that time, JPMorgan Chase鈥檚 legal team has developed a suite of 11 GenAI models, most slated for knowledge management, but that can be used across entire product line. This process provides a host of new capabilities, such as the ability to ask direct questions about contracts and documents. 鈥淲e built models that have data across all of our products and services globally,鈥� Brown adds. 鈥淚t makes for a more intelligent way for the solution to interact with our internal professionals.鈥�
That scale of technology-build may not be right for every legal department; but both Lettie and Brown agree that legal departments should be thinking about not just what the technology can do, but how it fits into the overall collaborative team picture. Departments also need to examine their ability to accept failure if it does not work.
Brown tells a story from two years ago, about a contract vendor that had a fantastic pitch to solve a crucial problem, However, the in-house trial wasn鈥檛 going well. Rather than push forward unnecessarily, the in-house team decided to take a step back. 鈥淭hank god we did that,鈥� Brown says, 鈥渂ecause we were able to recover and prepare for the next wave, which was [Chat]GPT.鈥�
The result is a lesson: The whole team needs to be on board to truly innovate. 鈥淪tart small and fail fast,鈥� Brown says today. 鈥淒o not be afraid to let leadership know that something鈥檚 not going right.鈥�
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