Thomson Reuters today (28 June) announced new contract lifecycle management features and capabilities in HighQ, as the demand for CLM among in-house corporate legal teams grows. While HighQ has for some time been capable of being a central hub for contract management, according to TR, the new CLM capabilities will enable better management of contract processes during key stages including initiation, authoring, negotiation, approval, execution, ongoing management and compliance, and contract renewal.
“The legal industry is facing increasing complexity, from heightened efficiency expectations to constant cost-saving pressures,” said Kriti Sharma, chief product officer for the Thomson Reuters Legal Tech portfolio. “Lawyers often work in environments where finding certain documents, surfacing specific content, and ensuring nothing is missed are crucial. This kind of arduous work takes up time and energy. Fortunately, legal technology – like HighQ with expanded CLM capabilities – has advanced substantially in recent years, supporting legal professionals through workflow automation, and making success achievable in this challenging environment.”
She added: “The 2022 State of Corporate Law Departments report found a 15% increase in CLM usage since 2018. Technology adoption trends across the legal sector are evident and reinforce a data-driven approach to CLM. We’re excited to continue supporting the next generation of tech-savvy legal professionals, helping them more effectively problem-solve, optimize contracting resources, and accommodate internal and external collaboration.”
While today’s news is light on detail of what the new capabilities are, a statement from TR says that core platform improvements include ‘continued enhancements to document automation capabilities, further connecting the end-to-end contract lifecycle management workflows to enable lawyers to select from numerous templates and create a collection of documents with a single click, all within the platform.’ Additionally, a deeper integration allows users to effectively track the status of signatures against each file, directly from the home page with eSignature dashboards.
The announcement follows the news that TR’s closest rival LexisNexis acquired CLM vendor ParleyPro in May. Fellow legal publisher and information services provider Wolters Kluwer acquired SharePoint based solution CLM Matrix as long ago as 2019.