Designing and using templates is the easiest place to start for legal teams that want to streamline their company's contracting work. They are easiest because they fit precisely within the skillset of the attorneys. Attorneys know the words that go into contracts; actually, they know lots of words (maybe too many). Therein lies much of the problem.

Contracts are complicated, and generally not very user friendly. So, bad templates are often the source of contracting woes. But a simple, easy to read, and reasonable template will go a long way to making the contracting process more efficient.

Template considerations:

1. Make sure the template terms are within the normal ranges of what is commonly acceptable by both parties. Note that as with many other aspects of contracting optimization, what can be accomplished with templates depends on several factors.
2. Not all contracts should be templatized. Bespoke agreements are by their nature, well, bespoke. So, they will need custom terms and special nuanced provisions. I know that no attorney drafts contracts from a blank paper, but the starting point for specialized contracts is often a prior executed contract (or a few) and is pieced together much like a puzzle.
3. Focus only on the contracts that recur in the legal department. These are the higher volume, repeatable types of agreements that land on Legal's desk over and over again, sometimes in what feels like a never-ending deluge of work. They are exactly the types of contracts that need templates.
4. Another consideration, besides sheer volume, is where the bargaining power lies. If your company has a difficult time using their own templates and you are most often negotiating from third-party paper, then you are likely better off spending time developing negotiation guides or playbooks.
5. Even if rarely used, templates are a worthwhile exercise because it forces the legal team to contemplate their positions on key terms and come to a consensus on the right level of risk tolerance. There is no better forcing function to finally decide on the appropriate limit of liability than when everyone has an opportunity to voice their perspectives, with the understanding that a decision must be made. Thus, even a rarely used template is a useful document as a reference guide that defines the preferred terms for the company.
6. Templates help expedite the contracting process because they speed up the initial production of the starting contract, and because they enable the business to handle certain contracts independent of the legal team.

Depending on how they are used, template formation, where they are stored, and how they are retrieved will vary, so there is no one right way of doing this. Every legal team should embrace the approach and policy guidelines that fit their culture, resources, and processes.