October 3, 2025 • 10 mins
I spoke with Matt Patel, Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Malbek, an enterprise CLM company providing comprehensive contract management solutions for procurement, legal, sales, and other functions. We discussed who gains the most value from CLM, how its value has changed since the emergence of generative AI, and how it is evolving.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan and I'm speakingtoday with Matt Patel, the founder
and chief operating officer atMalbec, an enterprise CLM company,
(00:25):
providing comprehensive contractmanagement solutions for procurement,
legal, sales, and other functions.
Hi Matt.
How are you?
Doing well.
Thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Yes.
Tell us about your backgroundand the genesis of Malbec.
I'm an enterprise software professionalfor over 30 years now in my career,
(00:49):
and used to work with a lot of largeorganizations implementing solutions
to co solve complex business problems.
For the last two decades,I've been in the CLM space.
I joined a company back in 2006that had A-A-C-L-M solution.
And this is back in the day, thefirst generation of products.
(01:09):
Most of them don't exist anymore.
Got acquired or sunsetted.
A few still exist, but thisis the era when there was no
ai it was all about on-prem.
It purchasing software, customcoding it, taking a year or more to
implement and then rolling it out.
And that was very normal back then.
Times have changed.
(01:31):
We started Malbec almost nine yearsago with a vision to change the
game in terms of how enterpriseCLM is deployed, configured, used,
and making it more self-service.
So with Malbac.
We ventured out to build out a CLMplatform for the entire business,
not just for legal across sales,procurement, finance, everybody
(01:53):
interacting with CLM, but beingnon-technical, all configured through a
no-code platform with AI and generativeai and all the bells and whistles.
So that's my journey.
Excited to see where CLM goes Next
is CLM primarily a legal application.
Some people think so.
(02:13):
I don't agree with that . Doeslegal need contracts?
They don't do contracts for themselves.
They won't complain if you gavethem no contracts to negotiate.
It's for the business.
They're negotiating and dealingwith contract red lines, approvals
for sales, procurement, or otherdepartments that are actually conducting
business with the counterparties.
(02:35):
CLM is not a legal solution.
It is an enterprise wide solution.
In a lot of my legal operations research,I ask the question, who owns contracts?
And I often get answers that indicateit's something of a hot potato.
Sometimes legal owns it, sometimes thebusiness unit, sometimes procurement.
So who gains the most value from CLM?
(02:58):
In any given organization,sales and procurement gain
the most value out of CLM.
Other departments have benefitsdownstream for signed and executed copies.
Finance and compliance and audit risk.
Everybody who's monitoring thedeliverables and commitments
of those contracts, they allbenefit invoicing payments.
(03:22):
Finance obviously needs to trackit, so there's other departments
that benefit from a goodCLM, . Think about procurement.
They deal with supplierpaper all the time.
Third party paper.
And as soon as the supplier sendsa draft agreement, what do they do?
They forward it tolegal every time, right?
Hey, this is a new document,it's not our template.
Please take a look.
(03:43):
So by having a solution that canstreamline that, expedite the review.
And with the magic of ai, nowadays, youknow that review can be so much faster.
Procurement has a lot to gain.
Sales is all about, Hey, I spentthree months negotiating this proposal
and quote with my customer, andthis deal is a quarter end deal.
(04:05):
It's the last day I need it signed.
I got it this far, but now, oh, I gottawait for legal to draft a contract for
me and they have a lot to gain witha well integrated CLM to Salesforce
or whatever CRM that they use.
Click a button immediately,get a document out.
Even get a lot of self-service options tonegotiate clauses that are really business
(04:28):
owned and not legal by having alternatesavailable so that the sales team doesn't
have to go back to legal every time thecustomer is asking for a small change.
So though the two departmentshave a lot to gain,
is it really possible to havea single legal tech solution
that covers all functionalityfor a corporate law department?
(04:48):
We can ask that questionto any department.
Is it possible to have sales useonly one single sales solution
or marketing or procurement?
No . You want best of breed,best solution for each use case.
And when you look at legal,there's e-billing, e-discovery.
(05:09):
Intake contracts and somany other use cases.
Is there a single platformout there that does it all?
Yes, there are platforms that havemodules that tackle all of those
problems, but do they do it well?
Is one platform the best at all of it?
No, that's just not possible.
A lot of these solutions exist , incoordination of acquisitions
(05:33):
over years that become part ofthe same platform, but sometimes
they're not seamlessly integrated.
They're siloed ordisconnected Experiences.
And the innovation, a singleplatform cannot innovate equally
well on every single module,whether it's e-billing, eDiscovery
matter management, CLM and more.
(05:53):
There are platforms that do one or two,or three things well, but I have not come
across anything that does everything well.
So there's no single platformfor all of legal use cases.
Has the value of CLM changed withthe emergence of generative ai?
It has completely changed.
(06:14):
If historically you looked at CLM as I'mnot able to manage the contract volume.
My legal department is still the same,while sales and procurement may have
grown a lot and they were lookingat CLM as a way to get intake done.
Approval workflow is more streamlined,getting it signed and tracking
renewals and obligations to getreminders so you don't miss those.
(06:37):
But with AI and generative ai,now you know there's a world
of AI only solutions out there.
Law firms are using it.
Some corporate counsel are buying itfor the legal department that will.
Hey, gimme a document.
I'll review it and tell youwhat's good, bad about it.
Red line it for you.
So there's lots of those toolsand CLMs have that feature
(06:58):
now where you can do the same.
The power of CLM is in the repository.
CLMs have all of that rich data, allyour contracts, the versions of the
contracts, the history of the approvals,and the red lines that you went through.
So now apply AI on top of that repositoryand you can see how has your position.
(07:23):
Over time changed on your indemnificationobligations or liability termination
provisions, ip and data privacy policies.
You have that history, so yourplaybook and your AI guidance can be
that much smarter . For example, youmight not allow very high liability
or uncapped liability in many cases.
(07:46):
But let's say you have a very targetedvertical in government or life sciences
or manufacturing, some kind of a keyindustry that is very strategic for you.
For that industry, you have allowed adifferent liability in your contracts.
So AI is able to navigate thatbecause your repository has
(08:06):
that historical information.
And while you have your standardizedplaybooks, it can have that
nuance that you know, while yourplaybook says you should do this.
I also see that you've been agreeing tosomething like this over the last few
dozen contracts because the customerthat you're dealing with is in this.
Targeted industry.
So CLMs with AI are super powerful.
(08:28):
Now,
how do you see CLMevolving in an age of ai?
All of us in the CLM space, we're gonnahave to think not to try to compete with
the lot of new AI solutions in the market.
We still need to stay focused on thecore of CLM, which is your approval,
(08:53):
workflows, templates, clauses.
You know what these platforms are designedto do because if you don't have your
house in order, the platform in orderwith the integrations to Salesforce
and Oracle Aribus a p, NetSuite, Coupa,all the tools that are needed for an
enterprise CLM, then AI doesn't matter.
AI cannot.
(09:14):
Work on a a weak foundation.
So the focus for CLMs and how we evolvewith the age of AI is to continue to
maintain that strength of the platform,the contract repository, the versioning
amendments, because, life of a contractis this short for the first contract from
(09:35):
request to signature, but it is this.
Long forever, where as you do amendmentsand renewals, so that history has to be
maintained in an organized way, and thenyou apply the power of generative ai.
And it is crazy what we have beenable to do for our customers.
To be able to put that lens across arepository and the type of insights
(09:56):
you can get out is incredible,is mind blowing what it can do.
But the caveat is you gotta know howto prompt it, so prompt engineering
has to be part of the CLM platform.
We've gotta guide the users becausethey're not all experts in prompting.
They can ask a question, they getthe wrong results, and now you get
frustrated that, oh, the tool'snot working, or AI is not good.
(10:19):
So helping them get through that promptengineering requirement is key as.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking with MattPatel, the founder and chief operating
officer at Malbec, an enterprise CLMcompany, providing comprehensive contract
management solutions for procurement,legal, sales, and other functions.
(10:40):
Matt, what a privilege.
Thank you so very much.
My pleasure.
Thank you, Ari.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan and I'm speakingtoday with Matt Patel, the founder
and chief operating officer atMalbec, an enterprise CLM company,
(00:25):
providing comprehensive contractmanagement solutions for procurement,
legal, sales, and other functions.
Hi Matt.
How are you?
Doing well.
Thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Yes.
Tell us about your backgroundand the genesis of Malbec.
I'm an enterprise software professionalfor over 30 years now in my career,
(00:49):
and used to work with a lot of largeorganizations implementing solutions
to co solve complex business problems.
For the last two decades,I've been in the CLM space.
I joined a company back in 2006that had A-A-C-L-M solution.
And this is back in the day, thefirst generation of products.
(01:09):
Most of them don't exist anymore.
Got acquired or sunsetted.
A few still exist, but thisis the era when there was no
ai it was all about on-prem.
It purchasing software, customcoding it, taking a year or more to
implement and then rolling it out.
And that was very normal back then.
Times have changed.
(01:31):
We started Malbec almost nine yearsago with a vision to change the
game in terms of how enterpriseCLM is deployed, configured, used,
and making it more self-service.
So with Malbac.
We ventured out to build out a CLMplatform for the entire business,
not just for legal across sales,procurement, finance, everybody
(01:53):
interacting with CLM, but beingnon-technical, all configured through a
no-code platform with AI and generativeai and all the bells and whistles.
So that's my journey.
Excited to see where CLM goes Next
is CLM primarily a legal application.
Some people think so.
(02:13):
I don't agree with that . Doeslegal need contracts?
They don't do contracts for themselves.
They won't complain if you gavethem no contracts to negotiate.
It's for the business.
They're negotiating and dealingwith contract red lines, approvals
for sales, procurement, or otherdepartments that are actually conducting
business with the counterparties.
(02:35):
CLM is not a legal solution.
It is an enterprise wide solution.
In a lot of my legal operations research,I ask the question, who owns contracts?
And I often get answers that indicateit's something of a hot potato.
Sometimes legal owns it, sometimes thebusiness unit, sometimes procurement.
So who gains the most value from CLM?
(02:58):
In any given organization,sales and procurement gain
the most value out of CLM.
Other departments have benefitsdownstream for signed and executed copies.
Finance and compliance and audit risk.
Everybody who's monitoring thedeliverables and commitments
of those contracts, they allbenefit invoicing payments.
(03:22):
Finance obviously needs to trackit, so there's other departments
that benefit from a goodCLM, . Think about procurement.
They deal with supplierpaper all the time.
Third party paper.
And as soon as the supplier sendsa draft agreement, what do they do?
They forward it tolegal every time, right?
Hey, this is a new document,it's not our template.
Please take a look.
(03:43):
So by having a solution that canstreamline that, expedite the review.
And with the magic of ai, nowadays, youknow that review can be so much faster.
Procurement has a lot to gain.
Sales is all about, Hey, I spentthree months negotiating this proposal
and quote with my customer, andthis deal is a quarter end deal.
(04:05):
It's the last day I need it signed.
I got it this far, but now, oh, I gottawait for legal to draft a contract for
me and they have a lot to gain witha well integrated CLM to Salesforce
or whatever CRM that they use.
Click a button immediately,get a document out.
Even get a lot of self-service options tonegotiate clauses that are really business
(04:28):
owned and not legal by having alternatesavailable so that the sales team doesn't
have to go back to legal every time thecustomer is asking for a small change.
So though the two departmentshave a lot to gain,
is it really possible to havea single legal tech solution
that covers all functionalityfor a corporate law department?
(04:48):
We can ask that questionto any department.
Is it possible to have sales useonly one single sales solution
or marketing or procurement?
No . You want best of breed,best solution for each use case.
And when you look at legal,there's e-billing, e-discovery.
(05:09):
Intake contracts and somany other use cases.
Is there a single platformout there that does it all?
Yes, there are platforms that havemodules that tackle all of those
problems, but do they do it well?
Is one platform the best at all of it?
No, that's just not possible.
A lot of these solutions exist , incoordination of acquisitions
(05:33):
over years that become part ofthe same platform, but sometimes
they're not seamlessly integrated.
They're siloed ordisconnected Experiences.
And the innovation, a singleplatform cannot innovate equally
well on every single module,whether it's e-billing, eDiscovery
matter management, CLM and more.
(05:53):
There are platforms that do one or two,or three things well, but I have not come
across anything that does everything well.
So there's no single platformfor all of legal use cases.
Has the value of CLM changed withthe emergence of generative ai?
It has completely changed.
(06:14):
If historically you looked at CLM as I'mnot able to manage the contract volume.
My legal department is still the same,while sales and procurement may have
grown a lot and they were lookingat CLM as a way to get intake done.
Approval workflow is more streamlined,getting it signed and tracking
renewals and obligations to getreminders so you don't miss those.
(06:37):
But with AI and generative ai,now you know there's a world
of AI only solutions out there.
Law firms are using it.
Some corporate counsel are buying itfor the legal department that will.
Hey, gimme a document.
I'll review it and tell youwhat's good, bad about it.
Red line it for you.
So there's lots of those toolsand CLMs have that feature
(06:58):
now where you can do the same.
The power of CLM is in the repository.
CLMs have all of that rich data, allyour contracts, the versions of the
contracts, the history of the approvals,and the red lines that you went through.
So now apply AI on top of that repositoryand you can see how has your position.
(07:23):
Over time changed on your indemnificationobligations or liability termination
provisions, ip and data privacy policies.
You have that history, so yourplaybook and your AI guidance can be
that much smarter . For example, youmight not allow very high liability
or uncapped liability in many cases.
(07:46):
But let's say you have a very targetedvertical in government or life sciences
or manufacturing, some kind of a keyindustry that is very strategic for you.
For that industry, you have allowed adifferent liability in your contracts.
So AI is able to navigate thatbecause your repository has
(08:06):
that historical information.
And while you have your standardizedplaybooks, it can have that
nuance that you know, while yourplaybook says you should do this.
I also see that you've been agreeing tosomething like this over the last few
dozen contracts because the customerthat you're dealing with is in this.
Targeted industry.
So CLMs with AI are super powerful.
(08:28):
Now,
how do you see CLMevolving in an age of ai?
All of us in the CLM space, we're gonnahave to think not to try to compete with
the lot of new AI solutions in the market.
We still need to stay focused on thecore of CLM, which is your approval,
(08:53):
workflows, templates, clauses.
You know what these platforms are designedto do because if you don't have your
house in order, the platform in orderwith the integrations to Salesforce
and Oracle Aribus a p, NetSuite, Coupa,all the tools that are needed for an
enterprise CLM, then AI doesn't matter.
AI cannot.
(09:14):
Work on a a weak foundation.
So the focus for CLMs and how we evolvewith the age of AI is to continue to
maintain that strength of the platform,the contract repository, the versioning
amendments, because, life of a contractis this short for the first contract from
(09:35):
request to signature, but it is this.
Long forever, where as you do amendmentsand renewals, so that history has to be
maintained in an organized way, and thenyou apply the power of generative ai.
And it is crazy what we have beenable to do for our customers.
To be able to put that lens across arepository and the type of insights
(09:56):
you can get out is incredible,is mind blowing what it can do.
But the caveat is you gotta know howto prompt it, so prompt engineering
has to be part of the CLM platform.
We've gotta guide the users becausethey're not all experts in prompting.
They can ask a question, they getthe wrong results, and now you get
frustrated that, oh, the tool'snot working, or AI is not good.
(10:19):
So helping them get through that promptengineering requirement is key as.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking with MattPatel, the founder and chief operating
officer at Malbec, an enterprise CLMcompany, providing comprehensive contract
management solutions for procurement,legal, sales, and other functions.
(10:40):
Matt, what a privilege.
Thank you so very much.
My pleasure.
Thank you, Ari.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.