Community Perspectives: Hi everyone! Our team is looking to revamp our signature authority policy. Is anyone willing and able to share what their company is doing?

In-house legal professionals share their thoughts on signature authority policy.

Community Perspectives: Hi everyone! Our team is looking to revamp our signature authority policy. Is anyone willing and able to share what their company is doing?

(Author) Legal Operations

Hi everyone! Our team is looking to revamp our signature authority policy. Is anyone willing and able to share what their company is doing?
 
Senior Legal Operations Manager Responses:
  • I try and keep it as simple as possible.  If I forget by tomorrow, please message me and I'll scrub mine and send it to you.
  • Completely agree - keep it simple and have a simple plan for exceptions. One of the things I miss from my Amazon days was the simplicity of the spending and transaction policy….
  • Yeah thanks. Its important to think about who has authority to sign the agreements. At public companies like Block, its likely to be directors and above. You'll likely want to break this down by org as well. Vendor contracts --> procurement director, legal director, ELT, etc. Marketing --> directors and above. Customer agreements --> legal or regional sales directors and above. Any finance or corporate related contracts should be signed by the ELT. This signature authority will likely need to be approved by the board, at least that's been my experience. Others can push back or add what I'm missing, but definitely agree on keeping it in a simple matrix. Are you using a CLM to ensure only approved parties can sign agreements?

Further Discussion:

  • Author: Thanks that is super helpful insight! Yes we are currently using CLM to ensure approved parties can sign. I think the biggest issue I see currently is that too many people can sign under the same conditions which makes it difficult to determine who can sign and also difficult to navigate the matrix itself.
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