Legal playbook · AI Employee: Lex

MSA & SOW From Templates

Standard MSA turnaround < 3 days

Install this playbookBack to marketplace
The problem

Every net-new customer needs an MSA and every project needs a SOW. Sales sends a request to legal. Legal opens the template, copies in customer name, negotiates the redlines, chases signatures, and files the executed copy. It takes days for what should take an hour, and every legal hire spends most of their first year doing exactly the same substitution work.

At a glance
Trigger
Form
Approvals
Legal review before send
What it does
Writes to your systems
Systems
Ironclad · DocuSign
How it feels in production

An hour-by-hour walkthrough.

AE closes DEAL-7841 with Acme Corp. In Salesforce they click "Request MSA." Lex reads the opportunity: customer entity name, jurisdiction, ACV, product mix, payment terms, effective date. Selects the correct template — US enterprise MSA with product-specific schedules, Acme's requested annual auto-renew — and populates every merge field. Lex compares Acme's own MSA template (attached in the opportunity by the AE) against ours to surface deltas: their template asks for uncapped liability, we cap at 12 months of fees; their SLA credits are stricter than ours. Every delta is flagged with our fallback position from the negotiation playbook, so the AE and legal know exactly what to concede and what to hold. The draft lands in Ironclad in the "pending review" queue. Legal reviews the deltas, approves or edits, and sends to signature. Lex tracks the DocuSign envelope, chases signers, files the executed copy back in Ironclad + Salesforce + the customer's Google Drive folder, and creates the renewal reminder for 11 months out. Same flow for SOWs, order forms, and amendments — the templates and merge fields change, the mechanism doesn't.
How it works

Step by step.

  1. 01

    Read the deal + pick the right template

    Opportunity → customer, jurisdiction, ACV, products, payment terms. Template registry keyed by (product line, customer segment, geography). Lex picks the closest match and lists the alternatives with reasons.

    Salesforce · HubSpot · Template registry
  2. 02

    Populate merge fields + assemble schedules

    Customer legal entity name (verified against Dun & Bradstreet, not the CRM display name), jurisdiction, effective date, term, payment terms, product-specific schedules. Every field cited from source.

    Ironclad · DocuSign CLM · Word template engine
  3. 03

    Compare against customer's paper (if attached)

    If the AE attached the customer's MSA template, Lex runs a clause-by-clause diff. Flags every material delta with our standard fallback position from the negotiation playbook.

    Redlining engine · Playbook rules
  4. 04

    Route for legal review + approval

    Draft in Ironclad. Legal reviewer sees the deltas, the AE's context, the customer's paper. Approves as-is, edits, or escalates. Approval routes based on ACV + risk (deal desk, VP legal, GC).

    Ironclad · Slack · Teams
  5. 05

    Chase signature + file + set renewal reminder

    DocuSign envelope with correct signers on both sides. Nudges every 48 hours. Executed copy filed to Ironclad, Salesforce opportunity, and the customer's shared folder. Renewal calendared for 11 months.

    DocuSign · Ironclad · Salesforce · Google Drive · Calendar
Systems and wiring

What you connect to make this run.

Salesforce · HubSpot

read+write

Read the opportunity for context. Write the executed contract back as an attachment + fields (contract start, term end, MRR, auto-renew flag).

Ironclad · DocuSign CLM · Conga

read+write

Template registry, draft creation, review queue, signature routing, executed-copy vault. The CLM is the system of record; Lex is the orchestration layer.

DocuSign · Adobe Sign

read+write

Envelope creation with correct signers, tracked signature status, automated reminders. Executed-copy download and file-out to the CLM + CRM + shared folder.

Dun & Bradstreet · Legal-entity registry

read

Verified legal entity name — one of the most common contract errors is the wrong entity name because the CRM display is "Acme" but the legal entity is "Acme Global Enterprises, Inc."

What changes

Before and after, honestly.

Time from AE request to draft in reviewer's hands
Before
1-3 business days
After
Under 15 minutes
Time from draft to signed contract
Before
10-30 days
After
3-8 days
% of contracts with correct legal entity name
Before
60-80%
After
99%+ (verified against registry)
Legal hours per contract
Before
3-8 hours
After
20-45 minutes (only material redlines)
Related

Playbooks that pair with this one.

RevOps

Closed-Won Cascade

Contract execution is the trigger event for the cascade — provisioning, invoicing, onboarding all key off the executed date.

Frequently asked

Answers about this playbook.

What if the customer insists on their template?

Lex accepts either direction — pick the base template and run the diff either way. Legal sees the same delta view regardless of which template is the base. Working from the customer's paper takes longer but is fully supported.

How does it handle multi-entity customers (parent + subsidiaries)?

Entity registry captures the corporate structure. Lex uses the correct contracting entity for the deal (often not the parent) and adds the subsidiary-inclusion clause if the deal covers affiliates.

Can we enforce that certain clauses are never removed?

Yes — clauses tagged as "immutable" in the playbook. Any redline touching an immutable clause auto-escalates to VP legal, regardless of ACV. Common set: governing law, IP ownership, confidentiality survival.

What if the AE requests non-standard terms?

AE flags the deviation at request time. Lex drafts with the deviation, marks it in the review queue, and routes to the appropriate approver (deal desk for pricing, legal for terms). Never silently.

How does this handle amendments to existing contracts?

Amendment templates keyed to the original MSA. Lex reads the executed original, populates the amendment with correct references (Section 4.2 of the MSA dated…), and routes for signature. Original stays untouched; amendment attaches.

See it run on your data.

Free plan, no credit card. Connect the systems this playbook needs and run it against a past event first.

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