Legal teams handle a steady stream of requests: new contracts, reviews of supplier paper, questions about existing agreements, policy advice and matters that need tracking. When requests arrive by email and contracts live in shared drives, legal becomes a bottleneck and the business cannot see what is happening.
ServiceNow Legal Service Delivery gives legal teams a structured way to receive, route and manage requests. Contractflow, Aavenir's contract lifecycle management app, runs natively on ServiceNow. Together, they connect legal intake with the full contract lifecycle on one platform. This post was first published in 2023 and has been updated for 2026.
About the two products
ServiceNow is a platform for digital workflows, used by many enterprises for IT, employee and customer services. Its Legal Service Delivery application turns legal requests into structured, trackable work, with intake forms, routing, matter management and reporting.
Contractflow automates and standardizes the contract lifecycle on the same platform: intake, drafting from templates and clause libraries, review, negotiation, approval, signature, storage, obligations and renewals. Aavenir AI reads and reviews contracts inside the app, and a person approves every AI result.
What the connected experience delivers
Faster contract creation and review
When a legal request needs a contract, it flows straight into Contractflow. Standard agreements are drafted from approved templates, and Avy compares third party paper with the legal team's playbook, flagging clauses that need attention. Lawyers start from a reviewed draft rather than a blank page.
One contract repository
Every contract, with its versions, approvals and related requests, sits in one searchable repository. Legal and the business see the same agreement, and questions about existing contracts can be answered quickly. Aavenir Atlas answers questions across the whole portfolio.
Automated compliance and obligation management
Aavenir AI extracts obligations and compliance requirements from signed contracts. After review, each one is assigned to an owner with reminders, so commitments do not depend on someone remembering a clause. See contract obligation tracking.
Better collaboration with the business
Requesters submit through a familiar portal and can see the status of their request and contract. Legal no longer answers status questions by email.
Insight for legal operations
Because requests and contracts share a platform, legal operations can report on volumes, cycle times, request types and bottlenecks, and use that data to plan staffing and self service.
Use cases
| Use case | How it works |
|---|---|
| NDA requests | Business requests an NDA, Contractflow drafts it from a template, low risk versions are approved without legal review |
| Supplier paper review | Legal receives the request, Aavenir AI flags clauses outside the playbook, lawyers decide on each one |
| Contract questions | Requests about existing agreements are answered from the repository or through Atlas |
| Renewals | Upcoming renewals create requests ahead of notice dates, with the contract attached |
| Compliance changes | New regulatory requirements trigger reviews of affected contracts |
Why one platform matters for legal
Legal teams handle some of the most sensitive data in the company. Running legal intake and contracts inside the ServiceNow instance your security team already governs means the same roles, single sign on, encryption and audit history apply. There is no separate contract tool to secure, integrate and maintain. For legal teams without ServiceNow, Contractflow also runs standalone. Learn more about contract management for legal teams.
Getting started
Most legal teams start with the highest volume request types, such as NDAs and standard supplier agreements, because they show results quickly. Set up the intake form, the templates and the approval thresholds, then measure how many requests close without legal touching them and how long the rest take. Expand to more complex contract types once the routine work is flowing.
What legal operations should measure
- Requests received by type and business unit
- Time from request to signed contract, by contract type
- The share of contracts signed on standard templates
- Requests resolved through self service or Atlas answers
- Obligations met on time after signature
These numbers help legal operations argue for staffing, templates and self service with evidence rather than anecdote.
Self service without losing control
One of the biggest gains for legal is self service. When templates, clause libraries and approval thresholds are set by legal, the business can generate and sign routine agreements on its own, within the rules. Legal sees every contract and can step in at any time, but no longer has to touch each one. That frees lawyers for the work that needs their judgment: complex negotiations, disputes, regulatory change and advice to leadership. Self service works best when legal reviews the templates and thresholds every quarter, using data on which contracts still needed legal input and why.
Over time, those reviews let legal widen self service safely, one contract type at a time.
The bottom line
Legal Service Delivery and Contractflow together give legal teams one platform for requests and contracts. Intake is structured, drafting and review start with Avy, the repository is shared and obligations are tracked, all inside the ServiceNow instance the company already trusts.