WorkflowContract Lifecycle Management

Legacy Contract Migration

Legacy contract migration with every field measured before it loads into your new CLM

Old contracts loaded into the new CLM with every field measured, renewals found first.

See one case, screen by screen ↓
demo18,406filesfound in 7 sources, read only, folded into 6,212 contract families
demo22of 24 fieldspass a 200-file sample checked by people; the 2 below their threshold are held, not loaded
demo37renewalsfound before go-live that the old register did not show — $14.8M a year
target6weeksto a loaded repository, from an estimated 22 weeks by hand
In short

What is Legacy Contract Migration?

Legacy contract migration is moving a company’s existing contracts — from shared drives, SharePoint, mailboxes, e-signature archives, ERP attachments, old registers and paper — into a new CLM as clean records. Legacy Contract Migration inventories, dedupes and extracts that legacy contract data: eight agents fold duplicates, link amendments to their parents, extract 24 fields with a page cited for each and measure every field on a person-checked sample before it loads.

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Updated

The problem

Why a new CLM starts with a backlog nobody can trust

Every CLM goes live on top of years of old contracts: a legal shared drive, procurement SharePoint, a contracts mailbox, the e-signature archive, ERP purchase-order attachments, an old register database and boxes of scanned paper. The same signed MSA sits in three places, an unsigned “final” draft differs by one clause, and the amendment that moved the expiry date is filed in another folder. Today a services team or a room of paralegals sorts it all by hand and keys the fields into the new system.

Then nobody can say which fields are accurate enough to load. Vendors quote one accuracy figure for the whole job; the migration lead needs to know whether governing law or the liability cap is right, field by field. A field read from the parent agreement alone is wrong once an amendment changed it, a loaded batch is cleaned record by record in the target, and the auto-renewals hidden in the backlog surface only when their notice dates pass.

typical98,000filesscoped for one company’s CLM load; 60,000 belonged
typical22minutesper contract for outsourced review and extraction
typical8.6%of a contract’s value lost, on average, to weak contracting
Where a migration’s 22 weeks go, in working daysestimated
By hand110 days
With the solution30 days
  • Finding files across every source and setting aside what is not a contract15 → 2.5 d
  • Folding duplicates and choosing the signed copy15 → 2.5 d
  • Linking amendments, SOWs and side letters to their parent15 → 2.5 d
  • Keying the target fields, terms as amended45 → 7.5 d
  • Checking accuracy before load10 → 7.5 d
  • Loading, reconciling and fixing records in the new CLM10 → 7.5 d

Estimated split in working days (five to a week) for about 9,800 unique contract documents with four analysts, by hand and with the solution.

How it works

How an old contract moves

Eight agents find, fold, link, extract and measure every old contract; the migration lead approves each batch.

What comes in
Old sources7 sources · shares, mailbox, archives, paper
Agents at work
Discovery agentread only
Then
Dedupe agentgolden copy
Family linkeramendments to parents
Then
Extraction agent24 fields, cited
Then
Sampling agentholds weak fields
Load agentreconcile, roll back
A person decides
CLM implementation leadapproves each batch
What comes out
Clean CLM records
Renewals found
Every step logged
One case, step by step

One migration, from 18,406 files to a loaded batch

Kestrel & Vane Group, about 40,000 people in 30 countries, moves to a new CLM on 30 Nov 2026. It is Wednesday 14 October, 10:20. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.

  1. 01Wednesday, 10:20

    The whole migration on one rail

    Dana Ortiz · CLM implementation lead

    Dana opens the contract families. The rail reads Found 18,406 files in 7 sources, Deduplicated 9,792 with 5,496 copies folded, Linked 6,212 families with 3,580 children, Extracted 6,034, Sampled 22 of 24 fields passing, Loaded 250. Below it, what waits for people: 41 duplicates, 96 uncertain links, 214 unreadable files, 2 fields held, 1 batch to approve and 37 renewals found.

    Each family is a stack: the parent with its amendments, SOWs and duplicate copies fanned behind it, the golden copy marked and the fields on its face.

  2. 02The sources

    Seven sources, read only, one of them failing

    Discovery agent

    The legal shared drive gave 6,940 files, procurement SharePoint 4,215, the contracts mailbox 2,388, the e-signature archive 1,976, ERP purchase-order attachments 1,307, the old register 1,120 and 41 boxes of scanned paper 460. It set aside 3,118 that are not contracts: drafts, letters, invoices and templates. The mailbox sign-in expired at 06:40 with 212 new attachments waiting; Tobias Lindqvist reconnects it.

    “The agents read every source and never move, rename or delete an original.”

  3. 03One family

    Brackwater: eight files, one contract

    Dana Ortiz · CLM implementation lead

    The Brackwater Industrial Supply MSA of 4 May 2017 is the golden copy — fully signed in wet ink, the executed scan over the e-mailed copy, text quality 99% against 81% for the box rescan. Four amendments are linked by party, date and the reference “MSA dated 4 May 2017”, and three duplicates from the mailbox, SharePoint and box 17 are folded behind it. Terms as amended show Amendment 2 moving the expiry from 3 May 2022 to 3 May 2027, with a 12-month auto-renewal and notice by 2 Feb 2027.

    Every value on the family carries a pin to the page it came from.

  4. 04One click

    She watches the extraction agent re-read it

    Extraction agent

    “Re-run extraction” shows the plan and each step: the golden copy, 17 pages; four amendments in date order; 24 of 24 fields found with 24 citations; expiry and renewal from Amendment 2, payment from Amendment 1, the cap from Amendment 3; the notice deadline of 2 Feb 2027 recomputed. It finishes at confidence 0.98 and hands to the sampling agent.

    The extraction agent never fills a field it cannot cite; it leaves it empty and says why.

  5. 05Duplicates

    Two signed versions that differ

    Aisha Raman · Contracts analyst

    Sefton Rourke Recruitment’s staffing MSA has two copies that match 96.2%. Both carry both signatures, and one page of 14 differs: clause 7.2 pays within 45 days in the copy from the mailbox and 60 days in the copy on the legal drive. The dedupe agent proposes keeping both as separate versions and asking the contract owner which is in force; until then the payment-terms field stays empty.

    “The dedupe agent never merges signed versions whose wording differs.”

  6. 06Links

    An amendment that could belong to two agreements

    Family linker

    Calder & Pike’s Amendment 2, a price index change, sits at confidence 0.71. The family linker shows what it weighed: the party matches, the reference reads only “the agreement of 1 July” with no year, the date falls after both agreements, and the price index clause 8.3 exists only in the 2020 agreement. Aisha can accept the link, move it to the 2018 agreement or make it standalone.

    The family linker links on its own only at 0.90 or higher; 3,484 did, 96 wait for a person.

  7. 07Quality

    Governing law scores 91.0% and is held

    Sampling agent

    People checked a random sample of 200 files against the cited page — Aisha Raman 120, Rui Costa 80. Counterparty legal name passes at 98.7% (224 of 227) against 97%. Governing law scores 91.0%, 182 of 200, interval 86.2–94.2%, against 95%, and the limitation of liability cap 93.5%: both are held. Of the 18 governing-law misses, 11 were changed by an amendment or side letter, 5 sat in a schedule and 2 were picklist spellings.

    “The sampling agent never checks the extraction agent’s values against themselves: people spot-checked the sample.”

  8. 0810:22

    She approves batch 1 with a reason code

    Dana Ortiz · CLM implementation lead

    Batch 1 holds 2,000 families and 3,214 documents. All six pre-load checks pass, mapping v3 is signed and the dry run against the new CLM has 0 rejected in 41 seconds. Dana approves with BA-02, “Approve with held fields excluded”, noting that held fields follow in a top-up load. The load agent loads it, then reconciles: 2,000 of 2,000 families, 3,214 of 3,214 documents, 44,000 field values, every checksum matching its golden copy.

    “Logged with your name and time. Any rollback needs a second person.”

  9. 09Signed

    She signs the fix; the field passes on a new sample

    Helen Achebe · Deputy General Counsel

    The agents propose an instruction change: read every amendment and side letter for a governing-law clause and let the latest win, read the schedules, add “State of …” spellings to the picklist. Helen signs it. The extraction agent re-reads all 6,034 families and changes 1,388 values; a new random sample of 200 files no person has checked before scores 194 of 200. Governing law is released at 97.0% and follows batch 1 in a top-up load; the liability cap stays held.

    A held field is released only by a new sample, never by the agent that extracted it.

  10. 10Before go-live

    37 renewals the old register did not show

    Marcus Feld · Legal operations manager

    The migration report for the General Counsel lists 37 contracts, $14.8M a year, whose notice dates fall in the next 120 days or have just passed. Marlowe Grid Services renews 30 Nov 2026 and its notice date of 1 Oct has passed; Orrel Chemicals’ notice is due 2 Nov 2026, 19 days away. “Send to owners” tells each owner, with the clause.

Who it’s for

Built for everyone who moves the contracts.

The same migration, seen by five of the people who carry it to cut-over — what the work looked like, and what it looks like now.

DO
Dana OrtizCLM Implementation Lead, Group Legal · approves each batch
CLM implementation lead
Before
Runs the move to the new CLM against a fixed cut-over date, with no way to say which fields are good enough to load.
Now
Sees the migration on one rail, approves each batch with a reason code, and loads only fields measured on a sample.
AR
Aisha RamanContracts Analyst · spot-checks samples, decides duplicates and links
Contracts analyst
Before
Opens folder after folder to work out which copy is signed and which agreement an amendment belongs to.
Now
Decides only what the agents were unsure of — two differing signed versions, a 0.71 link — with the evidence beside it.
HA
Helen AchebeDeputy General Counsel · signs the mapping, thresholds and fixes
Deputy General Counsel
Before
Is asked to trust one accuracy figure for the whole migration.
Now
Signs what each field means in the new CLM and the threshold it must pass, and signs every instruction change before a held field is re-read.
TL
Tobias LindqvistIT Data Migration Engineer · connects sources, runs loads
IT data migration engineer
Before
Loads in one direction and cleans a bad batch record by record in the target.
Now
Connects every source read only, sees a failing one at once, and reconciles each load to the last document with a rollback point saved.
MF
Marcus FeldLegal Operations Manager · reports to the General Counsel
Legal operations manager
Before
Owns the programme and the report to the General Counsel, and learns about an auto-renewal after its notice date has passed.
Now
Sends the General Counsel the funnel, accuracy by field and the plan to cut-over, and gets 37 renewals to their owners before go-live.
Built on the engine

8 agents. Each with one job, and hard limits.

Eight agents find, fold, link, extract and measure every old contract; the migration lead approves each batch.

Discovery agent

Crawls the shares, SharePoint, the mailbox, the e-signature archive, ERP attachments, the old register and scanned paper; inventories every file and sets aside what is not a contract.

  • Never moves, renames or deletes an original
  • Hands a failing source to the IT engineer
Dedupe agent

Fingerprints each file, folds identical and near-identical copies, and picks the golden copy by the stated rules: fully signed, executed scan, e-signature certificate, best text layer, newest.

  • Never merges two signed versions whose wording differs
  • Never deletes a copy; under 97% it goes to an analyst
Family linker

Links amendments, SOWs, orders and side letters to their parent by party, date and reference, with a confidence for each link.

  • Never links on its own below 0.90 confidence
  • Shows the evidence it weighed for every uncertain link
Field mapper

Imports the new CLM’s fields, proposes the mapping from extracted fields and old register columns, and normalises picklist values.

  • Never changes a signed mapping; drafts only
  • The Deputy General Counsel signs
Extraction agent

Extracts the 24 fields of each family with a page for each, reading amendments in date order to compute the terms as amended.

  • Never fills a field it cannot cite; leaves it empty and says why
Sampling agent

Draws a random sample per field, routes it to people to check, computes accuracy and a 95% interval, holds fields below threshold and explains the misses.

  • Never uses the extraction agent’s values as the truth
  • Never releases a held field without a new sample
Load and reconciliation agent

Builds batches, loads through the CLM interface, reconciles counts and checksums, rolls back on approval, writes the weekly report and finds renewals.

  • Never loads without the migration lead’s approval
  • Never rolls back without two people
Exceptions agent

Retries OCR, detects the language and translates for reading, and asks owners for passwords or missing pages.

  • Never guesses a value from an unreadable page
CLM implementation lead

Approves each batch; the Deputy GC signs thresholds. The agents propose; a named person decides.

Ask in plain words

Ask about the migration in plain words

Ask about any family, field, batch or source, or say what to prepare. Every answer points to its source, and anything that loads, merges or rolls back waits for its named approver.

Why is governing law held back?

Because it scored 91.0% on the sample, under its 95% threshold. People checked 200 random files: 182 were right. Of the 18 misses, 11 had the law changed by a later amendment or side letter, 5 had it in a schedule and 2 were picklist spellings. Batch 1 loads every other field; this one waits until a new sample passes.

Which contracts auto-renew before go-live?

37 contracts, worth $14.8M a year, that the old register did not show. The nearest: Marlowe Grid Services renews 30 Nov and its notice date has passed; Orrel Chemicals renews 31 Dec, notice by 2 Nov; Brackwater Industrial Supply renews 3 May 2027, notice by 2 Feb.

Show me everything in the Brackwater family

8 files, one family. The executed MSA of 4 May 2017 is the golden copy; 4 amendments are linked by party, date and the reference “MSA dated 4 May 2017”; 3 copies from the mailbox, SharePoint and box 17 are folded behind it. Amendment 2 moved the expiry to 3 May 2027 with a 12-month auto-renewal.

Prepare batch 1 for my approval

Batch 1 is ready: 2,000 families, 3,214 documents, 22 of 24 fields. All 6 pre-load checks pass and the dry run has no rejection; governing law and the liability cap are excluded until they pass. The approval is open with reason code BA-02. Only you can press Approve.

Every screen

The working solution, as it ships.

13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.

Contract familiesThe progress rail from files found to loaded, what waits for people, and each family as a stack with its golden copy and fields on its face.
One family, terms as amendedThe members in date order, the golden copy with its fields highlighted, and the value each amendment changed, each with its page.
The extraction agent at workIts plan and every step: the golden copy, the amendments in date order, 24 fields cited, later documents over earlier ones, its own check.
Sources, read onlySeven sources with files, contracts, years and last scan; a mailbox whose sign-in expired, with 212 attachments waiting.
Near-duplicates for a personClusters the dedupe agent was not sure of, the pages compared side by side, the clause that differs and what the agent proposes.
Uncertain linksEach amendment, SOW or letter with its proposed parent, confidence and the evidence weighed: party, reference, date order and wording.
Fields for the new CLMEach target field with its type, where its value comes from and its threshold; legacy spellings normalised to the CLM’s picklist.
Quality by fieldAccuracy on a 200-file sample against each field’s threshold, with its 95% interval; governing law held, and why it missed.
A held field releasedAfter the signed instruction change and a new sample, governing law passes at 97.0% and loads.
Loaded and reconciledBatch 1 pre-load checks, what is in it by entity, and families, documents and field values sent against received, with checksums.
Migration report and renewalsThe plan to cut-over and the renewals found on the way in, with notice dates, value, owner and days left.
The run logEvery agent and person action with its evidence, chained so no entry can change, filterable and exportable as an evidence pack.
Thresholds and samplingThresholds for critical, standard and descriptive fields, sample size, confidence and re-sampling — signed by the Deputy General Counsel.
Governance

Built for a migration you can defend: cited, measured, signed.

Every value cites its pageEach extracted field carries a pin to the page and words it came from, and every merge and link shows the evidence behind it — fingerprints, text match, party, reference and date.
A field under its threshold never loadsEach field is measured on a random sample people check against the cited page, with a 95% interval. Below its threshold it is held; the batch loads without it, and the record is marked “to follow”.
Named people signThe Deputy General Counsel signs the field mapping, the thresholds and every instruction change. The migration lead approves each batch with a reason code. The agents can approve nothing.
Originals stay where they areEvery source is connected read only. The agents never move, rename or delete an original, and archive-only families keep their files and retention date.
Reversible, with two peopleEvery load reconciles families, documents, field values and checksums, and saves a rollback point. A rollback shows a dry run first and needs a reason and a second approver.
A chained run logEvery merge, link, extraction, sample, approval, load and rollback is an entry in a run log chained so no entry can change, filterable by actor and kind and exportable as an evidence pack.
Configuration

Your thresholds and rules, signed by legal

How accurate each field must be, which copy wins and when a link needs a person are settings. A change is a draft until the Deputy General Counsel signs it.

SettingDefaultChoose from
Critical fields97%Counterparty, entity, effective, expiry, auto-renewal, notice, signed date, parent
Standard fields95%Value, law, payment, termination, cap, assignment, confidentiality, data protection, signatory, type, term
Descriptive fields90%Title, courts, insurance, notice address
Sample size and confidence200 files · 95%Random, stratified by source; interval shown on every field
Re-sample after an instruction change200 new filesNever files a person has already checked
Golden-copy rulesApplied in orderFully signed · executed scan over an e-mailed or saved copy · e-signature certificate · best text layer · newest
Linking and duplicatesLink on its own at 0.90Analyst between 0.60 and 0.90 · merge near-duplicates at 97% text match · never merge differing signed versions
RetentionOriginals never deletedContracts 6 years from expiry · deeds 12 years from expiry · legal hold overrides every rule
Connections

Works with where your old contracts already live

File shares and SharePointthe legal shared drive and procurement sites, read only
Contracts mailboxattachments in the shared contracts inbox
E-signature archivecompleted envelopes and their certificates
ERP and the old registerpurchase-order attachments, the supplier master and the old register’s rows
Scanned paperboxes from a scanning bureau, with OCR for poor scans
Your new CLMits field list and picklists, loads, reconciliation and rollback through its contract interface
What it changes

The difference, in numbers.

Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.

target
100%
of loaded fields measured on a sample first; none below its threshold
Fields measured
before they load
estimated
$1.27M
a year of contract value put back under management before go-live
Old register0 renewals shown
Found on the way in37 renewals
target
6weeks
to a loaded repository, from an estimated 22 weeks by hand
By hand22 weeks
With agents6 weeks

“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate (22 weeks = about 9,792 documents × 22 minutes across four analysts) · “typical” = published figures (a legal services provider’s published CLM migration case — about 98,000 files scoped, 60,000 in scope, provider-reported; a CLM provider’s published figure — about 22 minutes per contract for outsourced review and extraction; WorldCC/Deloitte — 8.6% average value erosion from weak contracting). Kestrel & Vane Group and the people, companies and contracts named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.

Questions

What legal operations teams ask us.

What is legacy contract migration?

Legacy contract migration is moving a company’s existing contracts — from shared drives, SharePoint, mailboxes, e-signature archives, ERP attachments, old registers and paper — into a new CLM as clean records. Legacy Contract Migration inventories, dedupes and extracts that legacy contract data: eight agents fold duplicates, link amendments to their parents, extract 24 fields with a page cited for each and measure every field on a person-checked sample before it loads.

How does it handle duplicates and amendments?

The dedupe agent fingerprints every file, folds identical and near-identical copies behind one golden copy chosen by stated rules, and never merges two signed versions whose wording differs. The family linker links amendments, SOWs, orders and side letters to their parent by party, date and reference, links on its own only at 0.90 confidence or higher, and sends the rest to an analyst with its evidence.

How do we know the extracted data is accurate before we load it?

The sampling agent draws a random sample of 200 files, stratified by source; people check each field’s value against the page it cites, and the agent computes accuracy for every field with a 95% interval. A field below its threshold is held: the batch loads without it, and it is released only after a new sample passes.

Does it capture the terms as amended?

Yes. The extraction agent reads the golden copy and then every amendment and side letter in date order, so a later document overrides an earlier one. Each family shows which amendment set each value — for example an expiry moved from 3 May 2022 to 3 May 2027 — with the page cited.

Can a batch be undone after it loads?

Yes. Every load reconciles families, documents, field values and checksums and saves a rollback point. A rollback shows a dry run of what will be removed from the new CLM, needs a reason code and a second approver, and leaves the legacy sources untouched.

Do people stay in control?

Yes. The agents can approve nothing. The Deputy General Counsel signs the field mapping, thresholds and instruction changes; the migration lead approves each batch with a reason code; analysts decide uncertain duplicates and links; and a rollback needs a reason code and a second approver.

Does it find renewals hidden in the backlog?

Yes. While it extracts, it lists the contracts whose renewal notice dates fall in the next 120 days or have just passed and that the old register did not show — 37 contracts, $14.8M a year, in the working solution — and sends each to its owner with the clause.

How long does it take to go live?

The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your new CLM’s field list, your sources and a sample of your legacy contracts — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will run it on a sample of your own contracts first.

See it on
your old contracts.

We’ll run Legacy Contract Migration on a sample of your own legacy contracts and your new CLM’s fields.