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Why Legal Teams Are Choosing CLM‑Lite Over Legacy CLM in 2025

Legacy CLM rollouts often stall on adoption. This post explains why modular, AI‑assisted CLM‑Lite wins on speed, configurability, and ROI—and outlines a 30‑day pilot plan you can run now.

Jarryd Strydom

September 13, 2025
Why Legal Teams Are Choosing CLM‑Lite Over Legacy CLM in 2025
Legacy CLM promises end‑to‑end control. In practice, many teams still see 12–18 month rollouts and sub‑50% adoption. CLM‑Lite flips the script—delivering usable workflows in weeks, not quarters.
Most legal ops leaders can name a seven‑figure CLM that never escaped the pilot. The gap isn’t ambition; it’s fit. If your sales, procurement, and HR teams don’t use it daily, contract lifecycle management (CLM) doesn’t manage much. In 2025, the winning pattern is modular: start where contracts actually flow, automate the 60–80% patterns, and let knowledge compound with each intake and decision.
The Real Problem Isn’t Contracts—It’s Adoption and Flow
Legal work starts outside legal. Intake happens via email, Slack, and ticketing tools. Approvals live in business systems. Legacy CLM tries to centralize everything at once, then stalls on change management.
CLM‑Lite takes a different path:
  • Meet the business where it works (Slack, email, CRM, procurement).
  • Capture intake, triage, and approvals in lightweight workflows.
  • Encode positions and playbooks so guidance is actionable at the point of work.
Sandstone’s approach treats your playbooks, fallback positions, and workflows as a living, AI‑powered operating system. Each request strengthens the legal foundation—so guidance doesn’t vanish in inboxes; it compounds across matters, clauses, and decisions.
What “CLM‑Lite” Actually Means
CLM‑Lite isn’t a feature checklist; it’s a deployment strategy for outcomes:
  • Intake that routes and enriches requests automatically.
  • Playbooks as code: clause guidance, fallbacks, and risk thresholds embedded in the workflow.
  • Lightweight approvals and audit trails that reflect how your company already moves.
  • Native integrations with CRM, procurement, and document storage—no rip‑and‑replace.
  • AI assistance where it’s safe and measurable: first‑pass drafts, standard redlines, and issue spotting anchored to your positions.

Inline example: A growth‑stage SaaS team with 40 AEs stood up standardized intake and an NDA autopilot in 10 business days. Result: cycle time dropped 65%, and legal touch fell from 90% of NDAs to under 20%—without sacrificing risk controls.

Side‑by‑Side: CLM‑Lite vs. Legacy CLM on What Matters

  • Time to Value
    • Legacy CLM: Design‑build projects that often run quarters before first value.
    • CLM‑Lite: Pilot the top two workflows in weeks; expand by module.
  • Configurability (Without Consultants)
    • Legacy CLM: Heavy admin burden; changes require vendor PS.
    • CLM‑Lite: Click‑configurable workflows, fields, and rules your ops team can own.
  • Cross‑Functional Adoption
    • Legacy CLM: New portals/processes the business resists.
    • CLM‑Lite: Uses Slack/Email/CRM to capture, route, and approve where users already work.
  • Knowledge Capture
    • Legacy CLM: Guidance trapped in PDFs and tribal knowledge.
    • CLM‑Lite: Playbooks embedded at decision points; each decision updates the knowledge layer.
  • ROI Clarity
    • Legacy CLM: Blurry benefits until full rollout.
    • CLM‑Lite: Measure cycle time, self‑serve rate, and legal touch per module from day one.
Where AI Agents Fit Today (No Magic, Just Guardrails)
AI gets risky when it improvises. It gets valuable when it executes within defined guardrails. On platforms like Sandstone, AI agents operate inside your policies and playbooks to:
  • Triage intake, tag risk, and route to the right workflow.
  • Draft first‑pass NDAs and low‑risk order forms using approved templates.
  • Propose redlines anchored to your clause library and fallback positions.
  • Generate approval packets with context, risk notes, and links to the relevant decision logic.
  • Summarize executed terms back into the record so data stays fresh and usable.
This is strength through layers: each agent action references layered data (positions, templates, past decisions). The result is crafted precision—tools shaped to your process—and natural integration that blends into daily work.
A 30‑Day Pilot Plan You Can Run Now

Week 1: Pick Two Workflows

  • Choose the highest‑volume, low‑to‑medium risk flows (e.g., NDAs and vendor SOWs).
  • Gather current templates, approvals, thresholds, and playbooks.

Week 2: Configure Intake and Routing

  • Stand up structured intake in Slack/Email and your CRM/procurement system.
  • Define routing rules, SLAs, and simple approval paths; connect storage for versioning.

Week 3: Encode Positions and Turn On AI Assist

  • Convert playbooks into clause libraries and fallbacks.
  • Enable AI agents for first‑pass drafts and playbook‑anchored redlines on standard forms.

Week 4: Measure and Decide Scale

  • Track cycle time, self‑serve rate, legal touch %, and approval turnaround.
  • Document exceptions that truly require attorney review; automate the rest.

Actionable takeaway: If you can’t quantify cycle time and legal touch for your top two workflows in 30 days, your stack is too heavy. Start modular, prove value, then expand.

Close: Build the Foundation, Then Build Momentum

Contracts are where the business meets risk, revenue, and relationships. When legal becomes the connective tissue—not the bottleneck—trust and growth compound. CLM‑Lite, powered by a living knowledge layer and pragmatic AI agents, gets you there faster and safer than a monolithic rollout.
Sandstone was built for this moment: layered data, modular workflows, and decisions that build on each other. See how it works, or get the guide to run your 30‑day pilot. Your future state isn’t a big‑bang migration; it’s a stronger foundation laid, one workflow at a time.

About Jarryd Strydom

Jarryd Strydom is a contributor to the Sandstone blog.