Your Path to Contracting Excellence in 2026

In this webinar, we summarise:

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^00:00 Sabrina opens the session and frames why contracting excellence matters heading into 2026.‍

^02:15 Panelists introduce themselves and share backgrounds in SaaS, legal ops and in-house leadership.
^04:05 The panel defines what “contracting excellence” looks like for modern legal teams.
^06:12 Lucy explains deal velocity and predictable business engagement as key indicators of maturity.
^08:03 Sarah highlights why contracting excellence varies across companies due to different structures and goals.
^10:10 The panel discusses the importance of emotional metrics and user satisfaction in contracting.
^12:18 Conversation shifts to consistency, clarity, and stakeholder trust as pillars of contracting excellence.
^14:35 Sabrina transitions into the realities of scaling contracting functions across growing organisations.
^16:02 Lucy shares why contracting must be managed as a cross-functional program rather than a legal chore.
^18:14 The group discusses self-service maturity and empowering business teams to take ownership.
^20:26 Sarah reframes contracting as a holistic business process that legal supports but does not own alone.
^22:40 The panel talks about aligning sales, finance, product, and legal on shared contracting goals.
^24:55 Sarah covers the legal-as-product mindset and how legal should design repeatable, user-centric workflows.
^27:08 The panel explores workflow friction points in CRM, Slack, intake channels, and procurement tools.
^29:15 Lucy discusses evolving from reactive “IT support” to proactive product stewardship in legal.
^31:22 Sabrina shares real examples of teams fixing pain points through smoother cross-functional collaboration.
^33:05 The conversation shifts to how AI is entering core contracting workflows in 2026.
^34:55 Lucy explains how AI excels at first-pass review, redlining, clause detection, and summarisation.
^36:48 Panel clarifies that workflow routing, approvals, and orchestration still require structured systems—not AI.
^38:10 Speakers stress identifying the actual workflow pain point before purchasing any AI tool.
^40:22 Sarah highlights AI’s impact on team enablement, including Slack copilots and rapid legal research.
^42:12  The panel covers affordable automation and how smaller teams can now leverage AI effectively.
^44:28 Conversation turns to responsible AI adoption and the misconceptions slowing down legal teams.
^46:05 Lucy shares why banning AI is irresponsible and policies must assume people will use AI anyway.
^47:52 The panel discusses US–EU differences in AI governance and regulation.
^49:33  Sarah notes that business teams will use external AI tools unless legal enables safer guided usage.
^51:10  The panel explores what safe, governed AI frameworks look like inside contracting workflows.
^53:02  Lucy explains how responsible AI evolves inside high-velocity legal departments.
^55:18  Final Q&A: audience questions on change management, integration, metrics, and platform dissatisfaction.
^57:40  Closing remarks: Sabrina shares next steps and a call to build contracting ecosystems that scale beyond 2026.