Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive Drives Faster Revenue Growth with Docusign
4x Revenue generated exceeds contract manager costs by four times
As in-house counsel evolve into more strategic business partners, many face the dual challenge of supporting rapid growth while managing an ever-expanding workload. Jessica Coonrod, associate counsel at Steve Madden, faced this hurdle head-on as the retailer expanded its global footprint and brand portfolio.
With every new product line, store launch, and distribution deal came a complex web of agreements.
“Every time we acquire a new company or product type, the workload proportionally increases—yet our legal team hasn’t grown to match,” said Coonrod.
When the opportunity arose, Coonrod led the search for a solution that would automate a lot of her team’s tasks while unifying siloed agreement processes on a single, AI-powered platform.
When Coonrod joined Steve Madden’s legal team, agreements were managed in silos. "We had solutions and protocols, but it was hard to implement them uniformly,” she said. “Conversations were happening across multiple channels, and it was impossible to ensure that the right people had all the necessary and most up-to-date information and appropriate visibility.”
“Docusign has the functionality and features that lawyers need and use on a daily basis—something missing from a lot of software—and I think it’s invaluable."
Jessica CoonrodAssociate Counsel, Steve Madden
Manual processes and limited visibility overwhelmed the legal team—particularly during peak seasons when agreement volumes surge. Renewals for everything from licenses and SaaS agreements to carrier contracts have to be handled at the end of the year. And the bulk of social media marketing agreements typically drop in four major seasonal tranches, totaling hundreds of contracts annually.
During the renewal period for the existing system, Coonrod put several CLM platforms “through the gauntlet” before ultimately choosing Docusign.
“It’s a tool that’s built with lawyers in mind, with the understanding that we don’t only work with lawyers,” she said.
Now, every department—from finance to marketing—is unified on one platform, with the resources they need to generate their own agreements using templates built-out, enabled, and perfected on Docusign. Smart language features dynamically adapt clauses and content based on inputs like contract type or jurisdiction.
“The templates within Docusign are wonderfully malleable,” said Coonrod. “Our old CLM platform made smart templates difficult or impossible to build or edit. With Docusign, it’s easy to quickly update and tweak templates in a way that was like pulling teeth under our old system.”
The automation has significantly improved efficiency, especially for business-critical agreements. Once a contract is signed, the system automatically notifies the right stakeholders so there are no delays or missed steps.
At the same time, the platform provides the legal team with full visibility, allowing everyone to track contracts across the pipeline, see what needs attention, and generate reports on trends, risks, and bottlenecks.
Unifying agreement processes created immediate value for the company, but Docusign’s AI-powered tools—including AI-Assisted Review—brought speed and precision to the legal team’s workflows.
According to Coonrod, the tool excels at identifying “needle in a haystack” details that might otherwise go unnoticed. “Docusign AI-Assisted Review is really useful for catching the weird things,” she said. 'It doesn’t care what the section is titled—it searches for words, phrases, and subject matter. It’s an incredible safety net.”
One notable example was its ability to flag a random PR provision buried in an unrelated section of a contract.
“It’s hard to get businesspeople to engage with the contract review process, even for things like problematic business terms,” she said.
What used to require labor-intensive manual review can now be done automatically in minutes. Docusign highlights deviations from company standards directly in Microsoft Word, suggesting corrections that can be applied with a single click.
These features save time and reduce risk, even during the holiday season when contract volumes increase by up to 30%.
For Coonrod and her team, this type of proactive issue-spotting is invaluable. “If nothing else, Docusign AI-Assisted Review is a fantastic fail-safe,” she said. “Even if we miss something small, the tool will flag.”
By streamlining workflows, and empowering teams with AI-Assisted review, Docusign has become an indispensable partner for the legal team.
“Docusign has the functionality and features that lawyers need and use on a daily basis—something missing from a lot of software—and I think it’s invaluable,” said Coonrod. “I’m excited to see what’s coming next.”
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