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Remember, everyone’s “ASAP” is different and everyone feels like their issue is the most important. We ask for a few days to a week, depending on urgency.
Sales will always cry wolf and it can be tricky to pick which K to prioritize. I would ask your superior how they generally prioritize competing contracts but a solid fallback is deal value. Also you have no control over the counter-party, I’ve had simple MSA negotiations take months for some. I tried to turn around redlines within 3 days. Same day for NDA redlines.
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That’s the other thing - you can be efficient but if the counter party takes forever or is aggressive, then it’s out of your control.
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You need to set an official SLA of 3-5 business days and then point people to the SLA when they bother you.
It depends on how well they’re communicating with you. I have a team that doesn’t communicate with me until the task becomes urgent. About half the time it’s actually urgent and the other half of the time it’s just something they’d really like to get done.
Everyone wants to float to the top of the pile but do not appreciate that the clock ticks for all those cases ahead in the line. At least that is what I noted in patent work in house, with a smattering of contracts. Tried to do the little contracts right away in the morning, though, as those tended to have justifiable short fuses. Tough balance and you may need to train your in house customers to give you some more lead time.
In my experience, sales tends to make pressure a lot, stating that everything is urgent. They also often see the legal department as the department of slowing everything down. In the beginning it stressed me a lot, but after a while I was able to „read“ what is really urgent and what could wait. Turnovers depend totally on what kind of contract and the complexity. But I obviously try to turn it over asap. 48hours - 1 Week usually.
My company typically expects 24-48 hour legal review turnaround (w obvious flexibility given complexity / how much of a crime scene the other side created). I also give sales “homework” as I am doing my review. For example, go get this change approved by finance, IT, etc. So typically sales is so pre occupied with getting the other SMEs input, they back off of me so I can work. Because apparently everything I receive is “asap” 🤪
We have a policy of 2 business days when the redlines are on our paper and longer if on customer paper.
The most important thing about having an SLA though is hitting your deadlines. Under promise and over deliver. If my team has 100% faith that when we say I’ll get it back by X, we mean it, they leave us alone. When they don’t have faith in the SLA, they will be a constant nag that it’s not getting done quick enough.
Besides having an SLA document you can point to, one of the the most helpful things I’ve found is to be responsive from the get go with sales. For example, I try to confirm receipt with the sales team pretty quickly. I’ve found this gives them some ease that we are working on it. Sales gets more and more anxious as time goes on and their anxiety level only goes in one direction so keep them calm with early touch points.
Service Level Agreement. In this context, just a policy doc about your turnaround times.
I do a lot of supply chain commercial review so a little different, but my stakeholders have access to all department contracts I’m working on at any given time through a project manager program. This gives them some context on how busy I am and I’ve been building some dept understanding on what’s actually urgent. AKA—is this a business critical contract?
What was the original timeline? Is there some major threshold date for a major discount? Is this a compliance matter?
If not, then I make sure to tell them that the business can live another day with this engagement.
I think SLAs can help a lot, but make sure you have some flexibility as others mentioned based on type of contract (aka redlines to your paper vs counterparty, etc).