Client Situation 

Our client faced rising demand across multiple legal teams managing procurement contracts, NDAs, professional letters, and 25 banking collateral types. Challenges included high contract volumes, long lead times for hiring and training, and cost inefficiencies with traditional resourcing models.

DWF’s Solution

The Legal Operations team designed a phased, scalable delivery model, which included:

• Planning & alignment: Mapped peak periods and high-volume contract types and updated playbooks.
• Training & capability building: Delivered targeted training and structured escalation pathways.
• Integration: Embedded multi-shore teams (UK and India) into client systems for seamless operations, and supported by strong governance.
• Delivery: Provided drafting, review, negotiation, triage, and allocation services aligned with client guidelines.
• Continuous improvement: Implemented automation opportunities and feedback loops.
• Reporting: Co-created real-time Power BI dashboards for transparency.

Key Benefits & Outcomes

The Legal Operations team added significant value and played a key role in achieving successful outcomes for the client.

• Consistent execution across 2,000+ contracts annually.
• Scalable support for peak workloads without reliance on internal hiring.
• Playbook-driven outputs ensuring quality and compliance.
• Seamless operational integration and future efficiency gains through automation.

By combining operational excellence, technology, and legal expertise, DWF delivered a cost-effective, flexible solution that transformed contract management for the client.

Client Situation 

A FTSE 250 speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company needed:

• Rapid review of thousands of legacy agreements to identify clauses on change of control, assignment rights, and termination provisions – critical for assessing risk and structuring negotiations, as it was involved in a time-sensitive M&A transaction.
• An effective, streamlined way to deliver multiple in-house day‑to‑day legal support services to free up its internal legal team to focus on strategic matters. The challenge was amplified by a major restructuring exercise, requiring the in-house team to prioritise high-value advisory work while routine tasks were delegated to external partners.

DWF’s Solution

ADAI‑Powered Contract Analysis
The Legal Operations team deployed Legora, an AI-powered contract analysis platform, to create a custom abstraction workflow. The solution automatically extracted and summarised key clauses, flagged red flags, and grouped high-risk contracts for prioritised review. A human-in-the-loop approach ensured accuracy and contextual relevance, enabling rapid, data-driven insights.

Managed Services Framework
The Legal Operations team designed a comprehensive Managed Services solution built on the golden triangle of technology, process, and people. The approach ensured the right resources were allocated to the right activities, supported by strong governance and technology-driven efficiency. Daily reporting via real‑time Power BI dashboards ensured complete visibility, and SLA tracking provided control and transparency. We also partnered with DWF’s Advisory team ensuring complex legal work remained with specialists.

Services provided:

• Contracting support: End-to-end handling of contract drafting and negotiation, stakeholder coordination, governance reporting, and playbook updates.  Close collaboration between Legal Operations and Advisory teams enabled the full range of contract complexities to be managed via multi-shore teams and a variety of managed services, retainers, and bespoke models.
• NDA handling: Streamlined NDA review, drafting, redlining, execution, and playbook maintenance.
• Contract uploading & CLM support: Accurate data entry, repository maintenance, SLA tracking, and process improvement.
• Legal hub & Due diligence checks: Centralised triage via the client’s Legal Portal, request validation, assignment, SLA monitoring, and compliance checks per client policies.

Impact

• Effective turnaround time reduction: Significant efficiency gains through process optimisation, technology integration, and a rigorous continuous improvement programme. We also provided 48‑hour turnaround for AI clause abstraction (versus 2-week manual review), meeting aggressive timelines and avoiding deal delays.
• Enhanced accuracy: AI-driven identification and validation reduced human error and ensured quality. Our standardised playbooks and governance ensured accuracy and uniformity across all tasks.
• Cost efficiency: Automated repetitive tasks, focusing expert review only on high-risk contracts and efficient resourcing.
• Scalable model: Framework designed to extend across additional contract types and support functions as needed.
• Risk mitigation: Systematic contract analysis and data‑driven insights to support informed decision-making throughout.
• Strategic advantage: Delivered clear visibility to risks, enabling confident negotiations and planning.

Key Benefits & Outcomes

By combining legal expertise, operational excellence, and advanced technology, DWF delivered a wide range of defensible, scalable legal services to the client including AI-powered data extraction and an end-to-end managed services solution. Both solutions enhanced efficiency and agility, reduced costs, and supported the client’s strategic objectives during critical transformation periods.

Client Situation 

Our client, a healthcare company, struggled to consolidate contracts across multiple repositories. Despite having a CLM system, inconsistent uploads and missing metadata caused unreliable data. Also, limited legal bandwidth and lack of metrics added complexity. The client needed support for record management, data abstraction, urgent request triage, clean-up, and compliance updates. 

DWF’s Solution

DWF implemented a Managed Services model, combining technology, process, and legal expertise. We did the following:  

• Migrated and reviewed legacy contracts, abstracting key metadata.   
• Provided daily repository maintenance and legal triaging.

We also delivered compliance projects, including: 

• FDA repapering: Amended 50 vendor contracts.   
• Notice project: Identified confidentiality breach notice requirements.   
• Data protection: Updated agreements for EU SCC and UK IDTA compliance. 

Key Benefits & Outcomes

The impact was substantial and included: 

• Efficiency: Reviewed 15,000 contracts in four months, eliminating duplicates   
• Compliance: Delivered timely FDA and data privacy updates   
• Cost savings: Reduced admin burden and avoided extra hires   
• Governance: Daily reporting improved transparency   
• Scalable model: Framework for ongoing contract management  

DWF transformed fragmented contract management into a streamlined, compliant, and cost-efficient operation, freeing the legal team to focus on strategic priorities

Client Situation 

Our client needed to execute contract variations for existing customers under the Pre-Digital Phone Line (PDPL) service, ensuring all customers transitioned to updated terms using standardised documentation within a tightly governed process.

DWF’s Solution

The Legal Operations team delivered effective solutions to address the client’s challenges, these included:

• Deployed a multi-disciplinary team of legal professionals, telecom specialists, and project managers under our managed legal service model.
• Documented the process in a detailed playbook with end-to-end workflows to minimise client escalations.
• Managed templates and processed agreements within a 72-hour SLA.
• Conducted customer outreach, including comms, FAQs, follow-ups, and negotiations where required.
• Oversaw stakeholder engagement across Product, Sales, Legal, and Admin teams.
• Delivered real-time reporting via Power BI dashboards and weekly status meetings.

Key Benefits & Outcomes

The Legal Operations team provided significant benefits that resulted in a successful outcome for the client. These included:

• Completed the project within the required timeframe with sufficient resourcing.
• Leveraged experience in managed legal services and repapering projects to optimise efficiency.
• Delivered a fixed unit cost model, ensuring transparency and cost-effectiveness.

By combining operational excellence, telecom expertise, and strong governance, DWF provided a scalable, compliant, and cost-efficient solution for a complex, time-sensitive project.