Champagne (Cristal or Dom). 6 cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli, 1 large bag of assorted Starburst fruit chews, 6 assorted cans of Campbell's chunky soup, box of baby wipes. Pre-chopped broccoli florets. A 15-foot boa constrictor.
No, you won't find these items at the Icertis CLOC booth, but you might find them listed in rockstar contract riders. Music lore is replete with stories of rock-and-roll contracts that are rip-offs or just plain silly. Exhibit A is the famous "Brown M&M" contract rider that Van Halen inserted into its contracts with concert promoters in the ‘80s.
For those born after the Reagan administration, a bit of background: As one of the biggest rock bands of their era, Van Halen could fill arenas, and in return, get concert venues to agree to any terms. This included a clause that dictated M&Ms would be provided backstage, but that there would be NO brown ones. If brown M&Ms were found backstage, the promoter would forfeit profits.
A Lesson in Obligation Management
The clause has long been viewed as a low point in rock prima donna excess. But the story behind the clause holds an important lesson about contractual relationships, commitments and trust.
As Van Halen's lead singer David Lee Roth would later recount, the "Brown M&M Clause" was a way for the band to ascertain whether the concert venue had actually read the contract—every single clause and understood its commitments. In addition to the silly candy request, there were serious provisions to ensure the band's massive stage production was properly and safely set up.
"If I came backstage, having been one of the architects of this lighting and staging design, and I saw brown M&Ms on the catering table, then I guarantee the promoter had not read the contract rider and we had to do a serious line check,” Roth explained.
Icertis Is Bringing the Rock to CLOC
We at Icertis love this story because, in many ways, it speaks to why we do what we do. Contracts matter, and we've built our industry-leading contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform to ensure the intent of every contract is correctly memorialized and fully realized. But instead of M&Ms, we use contract intelligence—structuring and connecting contract data to transform these static documents into strategic advantage.
As we gear up for CLOC 2022 in Las Vegas this year, we're using Van Halen's masterclass in contract management as inspiration and have a host of events planned to empower Legal Operations teams to "CLM Like a Rock Star." After all, where better to celebrate rocker excess than Vegas—underneath the gaze of giant M&Ms, no less!?
Many Ways to Connect
On Tuesday night, you're invited to join us on the Bellagio Grand Terrace for a party co-hosted by our partners at PwC. We don't want to give away all the surprises, but, suffice to say, we recommend you pack a LOT of hairspray.
Then on Wednesday, we have a very exciting session planned with ServiceNow's CLM Rockstars Andrew Brereton, VP of Legal Operations, and Troy Dunham, Senior Director IT Legal and GRC. Andrew and Troy will share insights into their successful deployment of contract technology—a 100-day sprint that set them up for lasting success. The event will take place at DaVinci 3 & 4.
And throughout the week we'll be rocking out at our booth – come for the candy-filled drumkit, stick around for the pointers on how you can do more with CLM than you ever thought possible with Icertis Contract Intelligence.
Hope to see you there!