Contract Approval SLAs: Setting Realistic Turnaround Targets

What is a contract approval SLA? A contract approval SLA is a service level agreement that sets how long the legal team will take to review and approve a contract. It is a promise to the business: send us a contract of this type, and we will return it within this time. A good SLA stops legal being seen as a black hole, sets fair expectations on both sides, and gives the team something to measure and improve against. The key word is realistic. An SLA that promises 24 hours on every contract and misses it constantly is worse than no SLA, because it destroys trust. The art is to set targets the team can actually meet, tiered so simple contracts move fast and complex ones get the time they need. This is general guidance, not legal advice. ## How to set realistic targets 1. Tier contracts by value and risk. Not every contract deserves the same attention. A standard NDA and a 50 lakh rupee master services agreement should not share a turnaround target. A common approach is three tiers: - Low risk and low value (standard NDAs, simple orders on your paper)

• Medium risk or value (vendor agreements, moderate deals, your template with small changes)
• High risk or value (large deals, non standard terms, counterparty paper, regulated matters) 2. Measure your current turnaround before you promise anything. Look at how long contracts actually take today, by tier. Set the first SLA near your current realistic performance, then tighten it as you improve. Promising a target you have never hit is how SLAs lose credibility. 3. Separate first response from full turnaround. A fast first response ("received, in the queue, expect it by Thursday") costs little and reassures the business, even when the full review takes longer. 4. Account for the counterparty. Your SLA covers your own turnaround, not the back and forth with the other side. Make clear the clock measures legal's working time, not calendar time waiting on the counterparty. 5. Make self serve the fastest lane. The quickest SLA of all is no review: standard templates the business can use without legal, so only the contracts that need a lawyer reach one. ## Sample approval SLA targets These are illustrative starting points, measured in legal working days, to be calibrated to your own team and volume. | Tier | Example contracts | First response | Target turnaround | |---|---|---|---| | Self serve | Standard NDA, standard order form on your template | Immediate (no review) | Same day | | Low | Low value vendor deal on your paper | 1 day | 2 to 3 days | | Medium | Vendor or customer deal, moderate changes | 1 day | 3 to 5 days | | High | Large deal, counterparty paper, non standard terms | 2 days | 5 to 10 days | Calibrate these to your own baseline. A team that takes seven days on a simple vendor deal today should not publish a two day SLA on day one. ## How to measure whether you are hitting the SLA - Cycle time: total working days from request to approval, by tier.
• First response time: how quickly a request is acknowledged.
• Time in each stage: where contracts sit longest (intake, legal review, approval, counterparty).
• Percentage within SLA: the headline number, tracked by tier over time.
• Volume and backlog: how many requests arrive and how many are open. You cannot improve what you do not measure, so track cycle time from the day you launch the SLA, even if the first numbers are uncomfortable. ## How to roll out an SLA to the business Setting the targets is half the job. Getting the business to trust them is the other half. - Announce the SLA with the tiers visible. Tell the business what each type of contract will take, so expectations are set before the first request, not argued after it.
• State what the clock measures. Make clear the SLA counts legal's working time from a complete request, and that an incomplete request or a wait on the counterparty pauses the clock. This single point prevents most disputes about whether legal was slow.
• Publish a start date and your current baseline. It is fair, and credible, to say the SLA begins at today's real performance and will tighten over the next two quarters.
• Review the numbers in the open. Share the percentage within SLA each month. A team that reports honestly, including misses, earns more trust than one that promises perfection.
• Use misses to ask for what you need. Consistent misses on a tier are evidence, either that the target was unrealistic or that the team needs more resource or better tooling. That is a feature of a measured SLA, not a failure. ## Common mistakes to avoid - Publishing one turnaround target for all contracts, so simple deals wait behind complex ones.
• Setting a target the team has never hit, which guarantees broken promises.
• Measuring calendar time instead of legal's own working time, so counterparty delay looks like legal delay.
• No self serve lane, so standard NDAs clog the queue that should be reserved for real review.
• Tracking nothing, so you cannot show improvement or justify more resource. ## Where a workspace helps you hit the SLA An SLA is a promise you can only keep if the work flows. Most missed SLAs are not slow lawyers; they are contracts stuck in intake, waiting on an approver, or lost in an inbox. A contract workspace helps by giving requests a single front door, routing each contract to the right person, and recording a live timeline of what happened and when, so you can see where time is lost and measure cycle time by tier. When drafting and review themselves are faster, because the contract is modelled as structured clauses with per clause risk and plain language editing, the targets get easier to hit. A workspace such as Adira is built around bringing drafting, review, activity history and tracking into one place, which is what makes a realistic SLA sustainable rather than aspirational.