Contract Capability Diagnostic

Most legal teams have a general sense of how mature their contracting processes are, but lack a structured way to assess them. This diagnostic provides that structure — a single-page matrix that maps eight dimensions of contracting capability across five maturity levels.

What the diagnostic covers

The matrix evaluates your contracting function across eight dimensions:

• Support model — How legal support is resourced — from external firms engaged on demand through to integrated in-house teams with managed legal service providers.
• Self service — The extent to which the business can handle routine matters independently, from no resources through to AI-assisted document automation and legal portals.
• Workload management — How requests reach the legal team and how response times are managed — from informal channels to portal-based triage with dynamic capacity allocation.
• Drafting — Template availability and automation, from no templates to fully automated drafting workflows.
• Negotiations — How positions are defined and applied — from business-led negotiation to AI-assisted adherence to playbook positions.
• Signing — Execution processes, from manual signing to optimised e-signature workflows across all contract types.
• Lifecycle management — Where contracts live post-execution — from local storage to a CLM system fully integrated into business processes.
• Data and reporting — What data is captured and how it informs decisions, from no data through to continuous improvement driven by real-time reporting.

Each dimension is scored across five levels: ad-hoc, centralised, standardised, automated, and smart. The result is a clear picture of where your organisation sits today and what a realistic next step looks like.

How to use it

Work through each row and identify which column best describes your current state. Most organisations will find themselves at different levels across different dimensions — that's expected. The value is in seeing the pattern: where you're strong, where the gaps are, and which improvements would have the most practical impact given your current resources.

About TILT Legal

TILT Legal is a legal engineering consultancy that builds AI-powered technology for Australian legal teams. This diagnostic grew out of our advisory work with in-house legal teams and law firms evaluating their contracting operations. We use it as a starting point in those conversations, and publish it because a shared framework tends to make the discussion more productive.