About The Contract Centre

The Contract Centre was founded by Iain Jacobs, former General Counsel at a major multinational corporation, to provide "in-house" contract support to companies whose legal departments are overburdened, at a far lower cost than typical law firms. It is growing fast and now has over 25 lawyers, based all over the world.

The Challenge: Connecting a Virtual Team

Costs are kept low by cutting out the classical law firm overheads of a downtown office, travel and meetings. The lawyers are also able to work much faster, by "following the sun," i.e. passing a file around the globe, to allow for a 24 hour working time. Such a concept can only be realized with a high degree of organization. A typical client project - drafting a contract - requires two or more lawyers to work together. During this process, the lawyers needed a way to easily share documents and collaborate with each other in a seamless manner. As a result, Iain began searching for a flexible, online platform that would allow his team to collaborate both internally as well as externally with clients.

The Solution: Valuable Document Management and Team Collaboration Support

Iain evaluated a few other collaboration platforms including SharePoint, but he needed a solution that was more flexible and accommodating for external collaboration. He ultimately chose Central Desktop. He was able to get it set up in a weekend and began using it immediately.

Iain established one workspace as an intranet for his team and additional workspaces for each project. The Contract Centre used Central Desktop's Files & Discussions feature heavily to share documents and contract drafts. When more than one lawyer was working on a certain document, they used the Check In/Check Out feature to ensure that they were always working off of the most recent version. The Contract Centre also utilized Tasks to keep on top of deadlines, as well as the Blog feature as an internal newsletter with regular updates from Iain.

With Central Desktop, Iain was able to easily and conveniently exchange information between his team of lawyers and his clients. It allowed The Contract Centre to stay coordinated and connected, despite being a virtual company. With Central Desktop's flexible and adaptable platform, Iain is confident that it will be able to support The Contract Centre as the company continues to grow and expand.