Yours versus theirs versus ours

A hot topic in Procurement circles is contracts, and more specifically, which contract to start with down the road to setting up governing T’s&C’s.

There are some who will say, “I will ONLY use MY paper, I won’t even look at the supplier’s.”

There are some that say, “If the deal has IP, why would *I* tell them how to protect the most important assets of their company. Of course I’ll use their paper.”

I fall somewhere in the middle. I give my usual “It depends” when asked this question. There are some instances where I need to start with my paper. Because it’s better (as in the case of a very small company without much in the way of contracts to work with), because it covers the topic better, or just because I feel like it (and nudging the supplier a bit).

There are plenty of times I want to start with the supplier’s paper. Oh stop those hand-to-heart gasps you procurement die-hards, there are PLENTY of reasons to use the supplier’s paper. You can learn A LOT about a company by what’s in their contract. And knowledge is king when negotiating.

Lately I’ve got a whole other problem on my hands. We have a new Lawyer at The Company. I find my legal rep. usually has strong feelings one way or the other on which paper to use. And that’s ok, I can make it work either way. Whatever it takes to get the deal done.

This Lawyer has thrown me for a total loop. They want BOTH our boilerplate AND the supplier’s and for every deal they create a THIRD paper, Frankenstein’ed up out of both. Whoa.

Doesn’t that seem like a lot of excess work to you? It does to me. If this Lawyer was turning these monster mélange docs with speed, I wouldn’t have any argument. But her patchwork quilts seem to take a LOT of time.

Now, it’s not my place to tell a Lawyer how to do their job….or is it?