How to staff a large contract remediation project

Staff a large contract remediation project by defining the exact population of contracts, sorting them into risk tiers, assigning each tier to a role that meets competence, supervision and risk requirements at an appropriate cost, and putting a lawyer in charge of the playbook and quality checks. A project needs a start, a finish line and an owner, so temporary capacity may fit a time-limited need; compare it with the recurring demand remaining after the project.

Define the project before you staff it

Write down:

• The trigger. Why the contracts need to change: a new regulation, a policy decision, a new template, a data protection update or a transaction.
• The population. Which contracts, how many, in which systems, and how you will find them.
• The change. What needs to be fixed in each contract: an amendment, a notice, a replacement or a review.
• The deadline. The date and what drives it.
• The definition of done. For example: every contract in the population is amended, or recorded as an exception with a reason.

If you cannot state these, any staffing plan will be a guess.

Tier the population by risk

Sort contracts into three groups.

1. Low risk. Standard counterparties, standard terms. The lead lawyer determines the required amendment, notice, consent or other action, then approves any repeatable workflow.
2. Medium risk. Some negotiation likely. Needs a trained reviewer working from a playbook.
3. High risk. Key counterparties or unusual terms. Needs a senior lawyer, and possibly outside counsel.

Sample a few contracts from each tier before you commit, to check your assumptions about how much work each takes.

Choose who does what

• Coordinator or contract manager. Runs the tracker, sends notices, chases responses and reports progress.
• Reviewers. Appropriately authorized lawyers or supervised staff apply the playbook within their roles; restricted legal judgments stay with qualified counsel.
• A lead lawyer. Owns the playbook, decides on exceptions, trains the reviewers and checks quality.
• Specialists. Brought in for regulatory, data protection or jurisdiction-specific questions.
• Business owners. Decide commercial questions and supply information about counterparties.

Match capacity to the risk tier, with experienced review and clear escalation for exceptions. We can help you find fractional lawyers for a defined review workload and revisit capacity as demand changes. Compare providers on the same scope, including the review lead, quality checks and change terms.

Build the playbook first

Before reviewers start, the lead should write:

• The standard change for each type of contract
• Acceptable fallbacks and what needs escalation
• Instructions for recording each decision
• Templates for notices and amendments
• A list of questions that must go to a specialist

Test it on an initial set chosen by the lead lawyer to cover the relevant contract types and risks, fix it, then scale.

Plan the quality checks

• Sampling. Use a lawyer-approved risk-based review plan, including full review where required. Sampling does not guarantee legal sufficiency or complete remediation.
• Consistency checks. Compare how different reviewers handled similar issues.
• Exception log. Every contract that cannot be fixed gets a reason and an owner.
• Weekly reporting. Counts by tier: not started, in progress, awaiting counterparty, done, exception.

Estimate capacity honestly

For each tier, estimate average effort per contract from your sample, multiply by the number of contracts, and add time for coordination and rework. Show best, expected and worst cases. If the worst case misses the deadline, decide now what you will cut, who you will add or whether to ask for more time.

Questions to decide

1. Who owns the project and reports to the sponsor?
2. What is the finish line, and who decides on exceptions?
3. Which tier is largest, and where will the effort go?
4. Do we have the tools to find, track and store contracts?
5. What do we do when a counterparty will not respond?

Checklist

• Population and trigger documented
• Risk tiers and sample results
• Playbook tested
• Roles assigned, with a named lead lawyer
• Tracker and weekly report in place
• Quality sampling plan
• Exception process and closing criteria
• Handover plan for records at the end

A short, well-staffed project with a clear end beats a long project that drifts into business-as-usual.