Let me start with something that will probably get me hate mail from lawyers: Your company should have zero in-house lawyers doing contract review by 2030.
I’m not saying this to be provocative. I’m saying it because the math is brutal, and most executives are too polite to do anything about it.
At Concord, we’ve analyzed thousands of contracts. More than nine out of ten get signed without a single redline. HR documents. Vendor agreements. Customer contracts. All templates. All routine.
Yet companies still pay full-time lawyers six-figure salaries to “review” them. That’s not legal work. That’s expensive bureaucracy.
Independent research confirms it: AI reviews contracts in 26 seconds with better accuracy than junior lawyers. Meanwhile, CFOs know they’re paying $300 to $500 an hour for reviews that don’t change anything. Contracts sit in legal for two weeks while working capital is stuck in purgatory.
The math doesn’t lie. The average low-risk contract costs almost $7,000 to process. For complex agreements, it’s closer to $50,000. And those costs have been climbing.
Here’s the reality: 70 percent of Concord customers don’t have in-house legal teams anymore. Some keep a paralegal. Others lean on outside counsel for complex work. But routine contracts? They’re owned by finance and operations, where the cash flow impact actually matters.
This isn’t about being reckless. It’s about moving faster. Contract lifecycle management software like Concord puts control in the hands of the teams who care about speed, compliance, and revenue recognition.
I learned this the hard way in 2009. I spent six months at a €5 billion French telecom manually reviewing thousands of vendor contracts. Building spreadsheets with 52 columns. Emailing Word docs back and forth. It was glorified data entry, not legal strategy. And it taught me a simple truth: most “legal work” isn’t legal at all.
1. Audit which contracts actually get negotiated. It’s less than 10 percent.
2. Use AI contract review for the rest. Faster, cheaper, more accurate.
3. Standardize everything that can be templated.
4. Keep outside counsel for the handful of deals that genuinely require legal expertise.
Legal teams know this shift is coming. They see AI doing the work faster and more accurately. They see CFOs questioning why contracts are treated as sacred legal texts when, in reality, they’re financial blueprints.
The companies winning today aren’t the ones with the biggest legal departments. They’re the ones who’ve already made the shift to modern CLM software.
So ask yourself: are you going to lead that shift? Or explain to your board why your competitors are closing deals twice as fast while you wait for legal to rubber-stamp another NDA.
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1:00 - 5:00 pm
Over 70% of Executives Surveyed Agree: Many Strategic Planning Efforts Lack Systematic Approach Tips for Enhancing Your Strategic Planning Process
Executives expressed frustration with their current strategic planning process. Issues include:
Steve Rutan and Denise Harrison have put together an afternoon workshop that will provide the tools you need to address these concerns. They have worked with hundreds of executives to develop a systematic approach that will enable your team to make better decisions during strategic planning. Steve and Denise will walk you through exercises for prioritizing your lists and steps that will reset and reinvigorate your process. This will be a hands-on workshop that will enable you to think about your business as you use the tools that are being presented. If you are ready for a Strategic Planning tune-up, select this workshop in your registration form. The additional fee of $695 will be added to your total.
2:00 - 5:00 pm
Female leaders face the same issues all leaders do, but they often face additional challenges too. In this peer session, we will facilitate a discussion of best practices and how to overcome common barriers to help women leaders be more effective within and outside their organizations.
Limited space available.
10:30 - 5:00 pm
General’s Retreat at Hermitage Golf Course
Sponsored by UBS
General’s Retreat, built in 1986 with architect Gary Roger Baird, has been voted the “Best Golf Course in Nashville” and is a “must play” when visiting the Nashville, Tennessee area. With the beautiful setting along the Cumberland River, golfers of all capabilities will thoroughly enjoy the golf, scenery and hospitality.
The golf outing fee includes transportation to and from the hotel, greens/cart fees, use of practice facilities, and boxed lunch. The bus will leave the hotel at 10:30 am for a noon shotgun start and return to the hotel after the cocktail reception following the completion of the round.
