Each episode features a different perspective from a guest on how every organization can benefit from building better commercial relationships with vendors and customers by implementing a good contracting process.
Pepe Toriello and Marc Doucette talk with innovators with long experience in contract management. How can a company with no CM process implemented take a first step, how to manage relationships with vendors or clients when things go wrong and where technology, such as CLM, can be more useful.
May 22, 2023
In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are delighted to feature Angelina Bellanton as our special guest. Angelina is currently the Senior Manager of Contracts and IP at Ikena Oncology and has a strong background in the pharmaceutical industry. During our conversation, Angelina provides us with a deeper understanding of the day-to-day work of a contract management team. We discuss the significant advantages of implementing a CLM system, including improved communication between legal and finance, streamlined approvals and signature processes, and the importance of a well-designed contract intake form. Our conversation also covers the importance of selecting the right CLM vendor for the organization and providing proper training to ensure that staff can leverage the system's functionalities effectively.
May 22, 2023
In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are delighted to feature Angelina Bellanton as our special guest. Angelina is currently the Senior Manager of Contracts and IP at Ikena Oncology and has a strong background in the pharmaceutical industry. During our conversation, Angelina provides us with a deeper understanding of the day-to-day work of a contract management team. We discuss the significant advantages of implementing a CLM system, including improved communication between legal and finance, streamlined approvals and signature processes, and the importance of a well-designed contract intake form. Our conversation also covers the importance of selecting the right CLM vendor for the organization and providing proper training to ensure that staff can leverage the system's functionalities effectively.
May 11, 2023
Are legal departments really hindering business growth? It seems that many CFOs believe so, but is this perception accurate? In fact, the truth may be quite the opposite. Legal departments are not just gatekeepers of legal compliance, but can actually be key enablers of business success. In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are joined by Mike Haven. Mike is the current President of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), a renowned organization dedicated to the advancement of the business of law. In addition to his role at CLOC, he serves as the Head of Legal Operations and Associate General Counsel at Intel Corporation, the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer. Mike has also previously held in-house positions at NetApp and Gap Inc. During our conversation with Mike, we gain valuable insights into the potential benefits of legal operations in enhancing the efficiency of other departments. We dive deep into the crucial role of legal operations in streamlining corporate processes, reducing legal touchpoints for lower risk and complexity agreements, and promoting a culture where legal is viewed as a strategic business partner. We also explore strategies for driving user adoption of CLM tools, leveraging AI functionality in CLM tools, and outsourcing legal operations. We conclude our conversation by sharing key considerations for organizations looking to establish a successful legal operations role. Tune in for these and much more!
Apr 17, 2023
In this episode of Contract Heroes we are joined by the CEO of TermScout Otto Hanson. During our discussion we talk about the future of contract management, what TermScout is, and how it can help organizations regardless of how they are currently managing their contracts.
Apr 04, 2023
During this episode of Contract Heroes we sat down with Dawn Richards. Dawn has an impressive history of leading contracting teams at orgs like Accenture and KPMG and is currently a Sr Contract Manager at VMWare. During our conversation we discussed: How a CLM tool and contract management team can help on a deal-by-deal basis and how to get other departments and stake holders involved in the CLM buying process.
Mar 27, 2023
On this episode of Contract Heroes we met with Zach Abramowitz, the founder at Killer Whale Strategies, a legal industry consultancy firm. He is a thought leader in legal innovation, regularly speaking at conferences, and has a newsletter covering all things legal-tech. During this episode, we explore the impact that ChatGPT will have on the CLM space and legal teams, the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating AI into organizations, and how it can revolutionize the way in-house teams work.
Mar 16, 2023
On this episode of Contract Heroes Jerry Silber the Vice President & Deputy General Counsel at Verizon Business Group joins us to discuss 6 contracting principles to help your team simplify over-complicated agreements, understand what data is important to monitor post-signature and so much more!
Mar 06, 2023
In this episode of Contract Heroes, we met with Jerry Pessah the Director II, Contract Manager at Flour Corporation. During his career, he has managed over 7 billion in procurement contracts and helped his clients save over $700 million in claims and negotiations. During our conversation, we discussed what claims management is, why post-execution contracting tasks are so important, and how a real-time procurement process can help businesses avoid potential claims by identifying issues early on in the process.
Feb 28, 2023
On this episode of Contract Heroes recorded live at the WorldCC Conference in Phoenix last year, we sat down with Steve Brown the Senior Manager of Legal Managed Services & Contract Lifecycle Management at EY Law. During our conversation, we discussed how technology can help both legal and procurement teams focus on high-value work, how to continue to maintain your CLM tool beyond go-live, and how to make sure all of your stakeholder's needs are met when evaluating vendors.
Feb 21, 2023
On this episode of Contract Heroes, we sat down with Leandro Doca, the VP and head of CCM for Americas at Capgemini. Drawing on his years of expertise, Leandro shared many tips around aligning third-party and client contracts in order to prevent revenue leakage, tips on evaluating tools to help you your team advance in their contract management journey, and so much more.
Feb 13, 2023
In our most recent episode of Contract Heroes Phil Dungey of Deloitte Legal and Anna Fink-Carratt of SirionLabs helped us break down the key points of codifying your contracts, especially in organizations with complex compliance standards. During our conversation we discussed: What outcome-based contracting is, what industries are using these types of contracts, steps an organization can take to evaluate their contract processes, and so much more!
Feb 03, 2023
On this episode of the Contract Heroes we were joined by Lewis Bretts, the Group Managing Director for LOD + SYKE in the US. During our conversation, we touched on a number of things including the main problems most customers face during CLM implementations and how to solve them, the importance of incorporating non-legal stakeholders in your CLM implementation process, advice on where to start the CLM journey, and what to avoid, and so much more.
Jan 17, 2023
Nick brings a unique perspective to the discussion of CLMs, having held different positions all throughout GM during his career so far. His broad understanding of the various departments makes him well-suited to help select the CLM tool the company will eventually adopt.
Jan 10, 2023
Joining us for a second time on the show in this episode is Roderick Wade, the Vice President of Contract Management at MedImpact. Rod handles relationships with clients of all shapes and sizes with a focus in the pharmaceutical field. During our live discussion at the WorldCC event in Phoenix we discussed: Why a CLM's ability to integrate with other parts of your tech-stack is so important, leveraging a CLM as your source of truth, how to learn from your contract data and build new processes from it and so much more!
Jan 06, 2023
Stephania is the founder at Passera Design and the co-founder of the Legal Design Alliance. She is also the inventor of the Legal Design Jam, a sought-after keynote speaker, trainer, and published author. She holds a doctoral degree from Aalto University, where her empirical dissertation focused on how visualization can improve contract user experience and foster better business relationships. During our time together we discussed how the use of diagrams, images, and visually structured layouts can make contracts more understandable and engaging for their day-to-day users, why following a user-centered approach is so important when it comes to contract design and so much more!
Dec 12, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the chance to speak with a well-known figure in the CLM space, Bernadette Bulacan. Bernadette is the Chief Evangelist at Icertis and has been working in legal tech for over 2 decades. During our discussion we touched on: How legal departments have evolved over the past 5-10 years, how can other departments in an organization benefit from a CLM tool, what Pitfalls to watch out for when starting a CLM implementation, how do you handle extracting and migrating data when moving to a new contract management tool and so much more!
Nov 29, 2022
In this episode of Contract Heroes, we met with Lara Trope. Lara has experience as both inside and outside counsel and now works as a legal operations consultant at InnoLaw. During our discussion, we talked about how to narrow your search for a CLM tool, what action items you should make sure your team and the vendors are taking to help make sure you're properly evaluating vendors, and also who on your team should be a part of the selection process.
Nov 17, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the chance to chat with author and commercial contracting expert, Jeanette Nyden. Jeanette has written 4 books sharing her expertise in the contracting field and currently provides a range of online and in-person training programs to help contract professionals master the ins and outs of contract management.
Oct 25, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we sat down with the CEO of Radiant Law, Alex Hamilton. Alex set up Radiant Law in 2011 and helps his customers by optimizing how large they create, negotiate and manage their commercial contracts. During our conversation, we discussed how relationships play a pivotal role in contracting processes, how to create reasonable contracts, and tips for building playbooks & templates.
Oct 11, 2022
In this episode of Contract Heroes, we sat down with VP of Contract Solutions and Disability Inclusion at Elevate, Prashant Dubey. Prashant hails from a varied background, starting out in healthcare for about a decade before moving west in the late 90s to switch industries. Throughout our conversation, Prashant drew on his extensive experience working with contract lifecycle management (CLM) software to talk about the growing impact of CLM on procurement departments as well as the key functionalities that proper contract management can accomplish.
Sep 20, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the chance to chat with founder of Pomeranz Law, Jeff Pomeranz. Before opening his own law firm Jeff worked as an in house attorney for 10 years making him a great resouce for others that work with contracts to learn from. During our discussion to talked about making the transition from inside to outside counsel, what information other department executives are truely looking for when meeting with the legal team, and what the value of a contract lifecycle management system is.
Sep 07, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the opportunity to chat with Susan Packal, the Vice President of Legal Ops at Snyk. Throughout our conversation, Susan provided a wealth of information about the current state of the legal ops realm as well as some essential tips for anyone just starting out in the space and those looking to hire legal ops roles.
Aug 22, 2022
During this episode with Stefanie we cover: - Best practice tips for small legal teams - How to make the most of outside counsel - How Stephanie and her team adapt to the ever-changing regulations in the Healthcare space - What her team was looking for when searching for and choosing a CLM tool
Aug 15, 2022
Throughout our conversation with Jim, we discussed: - The potential of AI technology and CLM - Why some vendors stretch the truth when it comes to what their AI is capable of - Where AI capabilities really are useable at this stage of product development - What the future holds for CLM and AI
Jul 25, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had a chat with contracting superstar Nada Alnajafi. Throughout our conversation with Nada, we discussed: - Negotiating tips - Redlining tips - How and why she started her blog - The many other take aways from her book Contract Redlining Etiquette
Jun 20, 2022
Building an in-house legal team from the ground up with Jack Terschluse We recently sat down to chat with Jack Terschluse, the corporate counsel for Balto based in St. Louis. Jack started his career at a large law firm, however, once the pandemic transitioned everyone into remote work, new opportunities became available and he moved to the in-house side of the law. He accepted a position as corporate counsel for Balto as a legal team of one and has since helped their team grow the legal department into what it is today. During our conversation we discussed: - Tips & tricks for a legal team of one - How to successfully build a business case and implement a CLM solution - How to build out a legal ops team at your organization
Jun 06, 2022
In this episode of Contract Heroes, we had a chat about soft skills with Patrick Barry, the GC of Emerson Electric's Commercial Residential Solutions. Our focus during our chat with Patrick was based around: - His list of soft skills that lawyers and sales associates can use to cut through the bureaucracy involved in the contracting process - The process his team went through when finding and implementing their CLM of choice
May 31, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had a chat with a long-term legal tech expert Roland Vogl. Roland is the executive director of CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. Throughout our conversation with Roland, we discussed: - The foundation of CodeX and what the program has meant to him as well as the students of Standford - How the legal-tech space has changed since Roland started working with technology - What it takes to create a legal-tech start-up - Tips for those looking to branch out to other forms of work in legal other than law firms
May 13, 2022
The Evolution of the Legal-Tech space with Nick Rishwain In this installment of Contract Heroes, we sat down with fellow legal tech podcaster, Nick Rishwain. Nick started his show, LegalTechLIVE, in 2015, when the realm of legal technology was still in the process of ramping up. With over 130 episodes, it's safe to say Nick knows his way around this space. In our episode we covered: - The evolution of the legal-tech and how it has exploded in recent years - How he has built a community and seen many organizations grow to the giants they now are in the space - Tips for selling to in-house leaders and what many of them are looking for when it comes to software
Apr 21, 2022
This episode of Contract Heroes featured Dan Hendy, the Executive Vice President of Corporate and Commercial Solutions at UnitedLex. Dan has been working in legal operations since 2015. Throughout our conversation, we discussed: - Dan's experiences with how the world of legal operations has evolved since its early days - Some of the biggest mistakes he's seen when choosing a vendor - The two goals every organization should have when it comes to implementing your perfect CLM tool
Apr 14, 2022
In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the opportunity to chat with none other than Krzysztof Kwiatek, the associate director at Deloitte Legal. Kris works in legal management consulting with a focus on CLM tools. We focused our conversation around: - What makes a successful implementation? - The correlation between high user adoption rates and happy customers - How to go about choosing from the wide variety of CLM solutions currently available on the market.
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We've summarized the responses from our legal-tech thought leader guests into an e-book to help you find and implement the perfect tool for your organization. Download it for free below