Centralized visibility over legal data, with over 10,000 contracts in LawVu to date.
With a presence spanning 145 markets, Dentsu is a multinational advertising and media giant that operates at a significant scale. The company’s legal function is no small operation, employing over 275 professionals, including 195 lawyers, to manage a complicated web of legal and regulatory obligations. For many years, that legal function faced critical challenges in maintaining visibility over contracts, managing compliance risks, and creating a cohesive legal infrastructure that matched Dentsu’s considerable ambitions.
That began to change several years ago when Global Head of Legal Operations, Russ Davies, stepped up to introduce more structure, technology, and innovation into the company’s legal function. Partnering with LawVu, he has since led the charge to transform Dentsu’s legal department into a connected global operation.
Dentsu’s in-house legal team is dispersed over multiple markets, and its legal processes depend on idiosyncratic, market-based practices. Not having a centralized system to manage work created major inefficiencies and inconsistencies. One of the most pronounced issues was the limited visibility over contracts, which meant there were risks to the business, such as contractual obligations not being enforced because agreements couldn’t be located and potential revenue loss from projects conducted without enforceable agreements in place.
“We had no idea where our contracts were and this posed a real risk to the business,” says Russ.
Recognizing these issues, Dentsu’s legal team sought a solution that could unify the legal function while being flexible enough to adapt to different markets, regulations, and business cultures.
Russ and his team conducted a comprehensive Request for Proposal (RFP) process, starting with nine vendors before settling on two finalists, one of which was LawVu.
The team undertook extensive competitor research, conducted independent interviews with existing LawVu customers, and designed a comprehensive trial of both products.
“Functionality was the priority but look and feel were important for our creative industry – LawVu hit the mark on both” notes Russ. Dentsu ran sandbox trials for the two solutions, which involved 40 lawyers testing them against 15 scenarios. The result? LawVu scored highest across 800 data points thanks to its user-friendly interface, ease of configuration, and full-suite functionality covering legal request intake, matter management, Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and reporting.
According to Russ, the choice was clear. “LawVu was the right temperature porridge for Dentsu.” Its flexibility and wide variety of features allowed the company’s different markets to prioritize the functionality they needed most, whether it was contract management, matter oversight, or self-serve workflows.
Once selected, the implementation of LawVu didn’t happen overnight due to the large scale of the project. The team approached the implementation with precision, aligning legal processes with Dentsu’s enterprise systems, such as Salesforce and its master data framework. This effort produced a unified data model with support from the company’s CIO and CDO, which connected legal entities with financial systems, creating a solid foundation for legal reporting and risk analysis.
“With LawVu, all of the company’s contract objects now use the same legal entity used with our finance systems, which means we have a solid foundation for reporting and data flows seamlessly,” says Russ.
Within six months, the entire global team was unified within LawVu, and the five-person legal operations team shifted into managing the day-to-day workflows and continuously refining processes to ensure all users remained engaged. “We run more than 40 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and maintain a robust backlog of contract automation wizards,” explains Russ, emphasizing the operational rigor behind the project.
With a strong platform in place, Dentsu began turning its sights toward artificial intelligence as an enabler for operational efficiency. Early initiatives include using large language models (LLMs) to analyze contracts stored in LawVu. Because LawVu is now our centralized contract repository, integrations can be built between LawVu and LLMs which allows Dentsu to extract deeper insights from its contracts, supporting smarter decision-making.
“Having a legal workspace like LawVu is the best foundation for AI because all of our data is in one place. It allows us to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up our lawyers to focus on high-value work.”
A centralized system also means that the team can utilize LawVu’s reporting capabilities to measure key performance indicators like contract turnaround time, the volume of work flowing through the department, and trends in matter and contract types.
Through this consolidation, ultimately, LawVu has helped elevate the legal team’s profile within the organization. By providing data-driven insights the team has gained a stronger, louder voice in critical discussions.
“LawVu gives us a seat at the table with the right data — showcasing our value to the business.”
The evolution of Dentsu’s legal function is far from over. Moving forward, the focus will be on ongoing optimization, cultural shifts, and deeper AI integration. Initiatives like deeper integration of LawVu and Salesforce and more usage of LLMs backed by LawVu’s data repository will further enhance operational efficiency.
Russ remains committed to continuous improvement. “We’ve centralized 10,000 contracts into LawVu for greater efficiency and visibility, but we know there’s so much more to come.”
With an ambitious roadmap ahead, Dentsu’s legal function is not only evolving but leading by example. Their transformation underscores the importance of robust legal operations, strategic technology adoption, and an openness to change — all built on a foundation of strong partnerships, like the one they have with LawVu.
Rapid business change, growing workloads, staffing concerns, and economic pressure make scaling your legal services imperative.
At a time when choosing the right technology is more important than ever, the LawVu legal workspace delivers greater efficiency, superior ROI, and faster time to value, so you can truly do more with less.
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