Curve: one legal function to rule them all
Curve is simplifying banking.
The Law Boutique helps simplify Legal.
Here’s how we helped Ali optimise his Legal function and make it a nexus of business information and driver of change.
About
Curve is an Over The Top banking platform that consolidates all bank cards into a single smart card and app. Curve has raised over $175m to date, spurring rapid headcount growth and a high number of new contracts to negotiate with key partners, consultants and software solutions.
The challenge
With such rapid growth, Ali and his team’s time became more scarce – and all the more precious.
We set out to help the team ensure they had enough time to work on high value, strategic work and keep up with the business needs and rapid growth plans and equip them with the data insights needed to demonstrate that all-important ROI.
The solution
Enter The Law Boutique, stage left.
With a combination of our LIGHTNING Contract Review, TOOLS Playbooks and GLOW Legal Design services, we helped Ali and his team get back to where they needed to be.
What we did
We set to work with our two-pronged tactical and strategic approach.
1. Tactical
On the one hand, we took the end-to-end contract lifecycle off Curve’s plate entirely, through our highly commercial and efficient contract review service. We reviewed 200+ contracts in a year, with a consistent 1-3 day turnaround time.
Deal speed provides a competitive advantage and our support was instrumental in helping the business continue to grow rapidly without compromising on the strategic legal support being provided in the interim.
2. Strategic
On the other, we worked to continually optimise Curve’s processes to make the Legal team more efficient, commercial and frictionless – bringing long-term benefits to Legal and the broader business.
Playbooks
We created a bespoke commercial playbook for Curve’s third party supplier agreements, establishing Curve’s standard positions and logging any deviations. This resulted in:
- Faster deal cycles. Quicker and more efficient contract reviews, with minimal pushback from stakeholders and counterparties
- Consistency. A consistent contractual landscape, reducing the company’s risk profile for investors
Empowering the team. Empowering of junior resource to pick up first round reviews as Curve’s Legal team continues to grow
Negotiation process
Before we stepped in, negotiations were taking too long and accountability didn’t sit with the right people, resulting in Legal driving the process. We introduced a simple negotiation process to solve this. The result?
- 20% improvement. 20% reduction in time taken to negotiate agreements
- Risk reduction. The right stakeholders were involved from day 1, significantly reducing the risk profile of the agreement
- Quicker to close. Fewer questions and issues at the signature stage, speeding up the entire process
Legal design and templates
We helped redesign Curve’s template documentation and pushed legal users to self-serve tools. The result?
- Less work for Legal. A reduction in inbound Legal requests by 25%
- Money saved. A costs saving of over £3,000
Autonomous business. The business being empowered to self-serve and to continue growing the business
Data insights
With this, Ali and his team were able to review and report on who the biggest consumers of Legal’s time are, what training the business required and costs savings achieved from optimisation efforts.
The result
A Legal team with room to breathe and demonstrable value and a business which acts as an effective frontline to alleviate the Legal team’s workload further.
In short: we simplified and optimised Curve’s Legal function. This enabled it to work smarter, more efficiently and power business growth.
“By the end of the process, we had a suite of bespoke, easy-to-use tools that allowed us to better manage our workload, save time and money and empower other business stakeholders.”
Alistair Houghton, General Counsel at Curve
Try it for yourself
The Law Boutique swaps inefficiency for optimisation and repetition for breathing space, helping you operate better. See for yourself.
