Beyond the Four Corners of the Contract and the Four Walls of the Legal Department

Bernadette Bulacan, Chief Evangelist at Icertis, recently sat down with Sheila Dusseau, Head of Global CLO Operations and Innovation at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, to discuss the benefits and innovation that has resulted from the unique structure Ferring has embraced in place of a traditional legal department.

Having experienced the transformation from a traditional legal department into a Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Team (more on that below), Sheila shared with Bernadette her insights on the benefits of this robust structure for driving innovation at every level in legal operations, particularly in a contract lifecycle management (CLM) implementation.

Chief Legal Officer Organization Structure and Practices

Over the past five years, Sheila has seen her role evolve from Head of Legal Operations to Head of CLO Operations and Innovation, reporting directly to the CLO.

Sheila explains that this shift underscores the value that non-lawyers bring to modern legal departments like Ferring’s. Lawyers only make up a third of this CLO organization, and this framework fosters more collaborative discussions among professionals and enables Shiela to provide more strategic oversight rather than solely focusing on the traditional execution aspects typical of a legal operations head.

An Environment Driving Innovation

A significant initiative Shiela’s organization has undertaken has been finding ways to reduce the amount of time that valuable legal resources devote to reviewing contracts.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals operates globally in a highly regulated industry, meaning it encounters significant contract risk. As such, lawyers, even at senior levels, were dedicating most of their time to contracting. In response, her CLO Operations team put an emphasis on the strategic allocation of high-salaried professionals' time. Contracts shouldn't monopolize lawyers' valuable time.

The effort has been highly successful: Today, 50% of all contracts in the business are initiated via self-service by nonlawyers, and contracts are approved 30% faster.

Shiela shared these four tips based on her team’s successful efforts.

Tip #1: Listen to your Stakeholders

Sheila emphasizes the crucial role of user engagement in implementing process improvements. When it came to implementing a new CLM system, she stressed the need for empathy in receiving feedback to ensure its smooth integration as a useful tool rather than a cumbersome burden. She also underscores the importance of remaining open-minded and incorporating input from a diverse group of users to enhance the tool effectively. In a CLO organization, the diverse establishment of professionals enables this ability to engage a wide variety of stakeholders in CLM usage.

Tip #2: Contract Template Harmonization

In initiating the implementation of a CLM (in Ferring’s case, they implemented Icertis), Sheila recognized the necessity setting the groundwork early for future success. Sheila convened a group of lawyers and together took part in a “Battle of the Forms” that entailed lawyers comparing 21 active MSA templates until they determined a single, base one to use moving forward. This rigorous, two-week process proved highly effective. By meticulously refining their most utilized clauses through this process, the team was able to develop a strong standard template, along with fallback clauses and deviation standards related to jurisdiction or unique business goals and products. The company has seen an 80% reduction of most commonly used templates thanks to this early effort.

Tip #3: Utilize a Digital Adoption Platform to Drive a Human-Centered Approach

As a CLM implementation progresses beyond its initial stages, leveraging digital adoption platforms such as Whatfix can further enhance efficiency with the CLM system through personalized user help in the Icertis interface. Sheila emphasizes the pivotal role of Whatfix in maintaining the human-centric design aspect of their CLM system. For Ferring, Whatfix has streamlined workflows by offering popup questions and insightful hints for users. Sheila regards the adoption of Whatfix as a significant advancement in user acceptance and views the tripartite collaboration between Icertis, Ferring, and Whatfix as fundamental to the success of their CLM implementation.

Tip #4: Alignment and support of an innovative CLO

A pivotal aspect that fosters a successful CLM implementation involves cultivating a robust and adaptable partnership between the head of legal operations and the CLO. Sheila illustrates the distinctive rapport she shares with Curt McDaniel, the CLO at Ferring, characterized by a readiness to engage in challenging dialogues regarding strategy and the dynamic nature of innovation pathways. Sheila underscores the necessity of adjusting her approach, despite her extensive background of over a decade in legal operations, to align with her tech-savvy and innovation-focused CLO's initiative in promoting and spearheading innovation within the organization.

Looking Forward

Thanks to Ferring’s successful contract transformation effort, Sheila shares that the company is now prepared to tackle what she calls her WIGs (Wildly Improbable Goals).

Her ambitious vision? To streamline contract processes to the point where negotiations become unnecessary. She aims to get there by pushing her team to explore new AI applications in CLM systems, digitizing playbooks, and enhance their clause library.

Listen to the full conversation above for more insights into how legal operations teams can drive value across their legal department and their enterprise by taking a smarter approach to contracts.