The question at the contract review
Your contract with a firm is due for review. The innovation lead who bought your product has moved to another firm. The managing partner, preparing the budget, asks the finance director what the product delivered this year. The finance director asks your account manager. Your account manager exports login counts and the number of documents processed, and sends a spreadsheet.
The managing partner is not impressed. Documents processed does not tell them whether fee earners saved time, whether quality improved, or whether any practice group relies on the product. A competitor has offered a lower price. The review turns into a negotiation about discounts.
Why the story is missing
Your product records what it does, but not in terms a law firm's leadership uses. The link between activity and the firm's work is never made.
- Usage is recorded by user and action, not by matter, practice group or task type.
- The firm's own reasons for buying the product were never written down as measures.
- Time saved and quality are never asked about, so there is no evidence either way.
- Champions leave, and their knowledge of why the product was bought goes with them.
- Reports are assembled once a year, under pressure, from raw exports.
What a missing story costs
Contract reviews without evidence become price discussions, and discounts become the new baseline. Firms that cannot see value in a practice group may remove licences from it, even where the product was working well. Worse, you do not find out which groups are getting little from the product until it is too late to help them. And a product with no evidence of value is easy to cut when the firm's budget tightens.
Law firm budgets are set by partners who did not choose the product and may never have used it. They see a line in the technology budget, a cost per licence, and whatever the finance director tells them. Unless the evidence reaches them in their own terms, before the review, the decision is made on price and on the loudest opinion in the room.
How we build reporting partners can read
What we build collects evidence of value throughout the year, in the firm's terms.
- Agreed purposes at the start of each contract, per practice group: for example, first drafts of a document type, review of incoming contracts, or research on a type of question.
- Usage linked to matters and practice groups, using the firm's matter references and directory groups, without exposing client content in reports.
- Short, occasional feedback from fee earners after using the product: did it save time, and how much correction did the output need. Kept light so people answer.
- Quarterly summaries sent to the practice heads and the firm's sponsor, so evidence builds up and a change of champion does not reset it.
- A contract review report: use by practice group against the agreed purposes, fee earner feedback, gaps, and suggestions for groups that are not benefiting.
- Honest treatment of weak areas: groups with low use or poor feedback are shown, with what could change.
| Report section | Built from |
|---|---|
| Use by practice group | Product activity linked to matters and groups |
| Tasks performed | Activity mapped to the agreed purposes |
| Fee earner feedback | Short in-product questions after use |
| Groups not benefiting | Low use or poor feedback, shown plainly |
| Next year | Suggestions agreed with practice heads |
We do not turn feedback into invented figures. If fee earners say a task was quicker, the report says that, in their words and in the proportions that answered.
The next contract review
The finance director has had four quarterly summaries. The review report shows that the real estate and employment groups use the product on most new matters of the agreed types, with positive feedback on time and some complaints about one template. The corporate group barely uses it, and the report says so, with a suggestion. The managing partner asks for the corporate issue to be addressed and renews for the groups that use it, with an option to extend.
Is your next contract review at risk?
- Your evidence of value is logins and documents processed.
- You have never asked fee earners whether the product saved time.
- The person who bought your product at the firm has left.
- Practice heads have never seen a report on their group's use.
- Contract reviews usually end in discounts.