Contract Heroes
Uniting Technology and Legal: Driving Organizational Engagement in Legal Tech Initiatives With James Peacock
Episode Summary
In this episode of Contract Heroes, we are joined by James Peacock, Head of Key Enterprise Accounts at ThoughtRiver. James has a broad resume full of experience from a variety of roles, enabling him to understand contracting from both the commercial side and the legal side. Throughout our conversation, James emphasizes the importance of alignment between the business and the legal team. This alignment, along with communication and proper change management, is the gateway to innovation for in-house employees and the successful implementation of technology like CLM. He explains that, without buy-in from internal teams, technology can fail. So, we must meet employees where they are prior to implementation, taking stock of what everyone wants and making sure the business is in the right place to succeed. This podcast episode will help in-house legal and commercial teams learn how to better communicate with each other and work together to drive the success of the organization.
Episode Notes
What We Discuss:
- [00:22] - Introduction to James Peacock and his background
- [2:06] - Understanding what the business wants vs. what employees want from in-house innovation and how technology enables change
- [9:51] - How to get other departments involved in CLM implementation
- [12:55] - Aligning the goals of commercial and legal teams for better change management
Notable Quotes:
- [10:48] - “Pick someone that has a 100% view in their mind that this will be successful. They have no problem with it at all. They’re convinced it’s the right technology. And then, pick someone that absolutely hates it. And, by the end of an implementation, if you’ve managed to turn that person that really didn’t like the idea of it into saying, ‘I can see this. I get this. I can see the proof point of this technology,’ you’ve done it!” - James
- [17:40] - “Trying to join up the organization through all those three. It’s about communication. It’s about understanding the roles and how important those roles are to the future viability of the business. Without sales, there’s no revenue, you could argue. Without legal, there’s no business because if you signed everything that came through your legal front door, there’s a chance you’d be in some hot water.” - James
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