AWARD WINNERS
2025 Legal Procurement Awards, Honoring Advances in Legal Services & Technology
VALUE CATEGORY WINNER: IBM & PERSUIT "This year’s winner, IBM, worked with PERSUIT to completely transform how they engage outside counsel. In the past, IBM’s process for hiring law firms was decentralized, time consuming, and lacked visibility across the broader legal market. With new leadership and a clear vision, IBM rolled out a competitive sourcing model that puts data and transparency at the center of decision making. Using PERSUIT’s platform, IBM attorneys now scope matters strategically, request competitive proposals, and use alternative fee arrangements and reverse auctions to secure the best value and insight into the market. The rollout was quick and effective, supported by clear guidelines, targeted training, and one on one coaching that helped attorneys adopt the new model right away. The results speak for themselves. In less than a year, IBM issued 66 RFPs representing 45 million dollars in legal work, saved over 12 million dollars, and achieved adoption rates well above industry averages. This initiative not only delivers measurable savings but also strengthens governance, improves sourcing discipline, and fosters deeper collaboration between Legal Operations and attorneys. Congratulations to IBM and PERSUIT for showing what is possible when strategy, technology, and leadership come together to create real value for the business.” |
INNOVATION CATEGORY WINNER:
WORKDAY & TONKEAN
“This year’s winner stood out for their groundbreaking use of AI to reimagine enterprise legal operations.
Workday, in partnership with Tonkean, introduced Agentic Orchestration into Workday’s legal operations, deploying specialized AI agents that autonomously execute routine workflows while maintaining strict compliance controls. Among these new capabilities are the NDA Agent, which drafts compliant agreements in minutes, and the Company Policies Q&A Agent, which provides employees with instant guidance on regulatory and internal policies. By embedding these agents directly into Workday’s systems and collaboration tools, they’ve created frictionless access to legal services while giving the legal team full visibility and governance.
The results are remarkable: nearly 100% adoption of legal intake processes, NDA cycle times reduced from days to minutes, and legal bandwidth redirected to more strategic, high-value work.
This collaboration between Workday and Tonkean sets a new benchmark for enterprise-ready AI, proving that automation can be deployed securely, at scale, and with measurable business impact.
Congratulations to the Workday and Tonkean teams for showing what’s possible when innovation, governance, and technology come together to transform legal operations.”
COLLABORATION CATEGORY WINNER: CORTEVA AGRISCIENCE |
“Good evening, everyone! It is great to be here at the 2025 Legal Procurement Awards celebrating the incredible power of collaboration across our industry.
This year’s winner impressed the judges with a global cross functional effort to reimagine and streamline the Contract Lifecycle Management process. Corteva’s Legal Operations, Procurement, IT, and Automation Center of Excellence teams came together to eliminate duplicative steps, create a single standardized process, and automate manual data entry with AI powered Digital Workers.
Since launch, contracts are being created 90 percent faster across Onit and Ariba, service level agreements have been cut in half, and AI driven contract reconciliation has already delivered significant savings and reduced risk. This effort is projected to generate 1.19 million dollars in annual ROI through cost avoidance, increased speed, and reduced rework.
Equally impressive was Corteva’s approach to change management, providing targeted training and communication to ensure adoption across regions and divisions worldwide. The result is a truly global solution that empowers procurement teams to focus on higher value work while driving consistency and compliance across the organization.
This project is a perfect example of collaboration at its best, with teams coming together with a shared vision, embracing technology, and delivering measurable impact.
Please join me in congratulating Corteva, the winner of this year’s Collaboration Award!”
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