As the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, Ancestry is in the business of discovery. With millions of customers, evolving partnerships, and a fast-moving technology roadmap, the company needed its back-office operations—particularly Legal and Procurement—to be just as agile as its product development teams.But agility isn’t easy when contracts are stuck in review cycles. With growing volume and limited resources, Ancestry’s Procurement team often found itself waiting in line behind higher-priority legal matters. Negotiations slowed, execution lagged, and both teams were stretched thin. What began as a search for efficiency turned into a transformation in how Legal and Procurement collaborated.
The bottleneck wasn’t due to lack of effort—if anything, both teams were working overtime. Procurement needed to move quickly to support business initiatives, but every contract still required legal review. With a finite number of attorneys and a long queue of deals, even low-risk agreements were delayed. Legal was buried in comments and redlines. Procurement was stuck waiting.The real problem wasn’t the people—it was the process.Without an efficient way to divide contract work between the two teams, everything defaulted to Legal. That not only slowed negotiations but also diverted legal resources away from strategic matters. Procurement had the capability, but not the tools, to take on more responsibility. They needed structure. They needed consistency. They needed a new playbook—literally.
Ancestry’s breakthrough came when it realized Legal didn’t need to be in every negotiation—it just needed to be in the foundation of each one.By adopting DocJuris, Ancestry embedded Legal’s knowledge directly into Procurement’s workflow. Company-approved playbooks, issue flags, and markup logic were built into the tool. Procurement team members could now identify risk, apply redlines, and move contracts forward with clarity and confidence.What used to require a full legal review now took minutes. DocJuris transformed the process from a legal bottleneck into a cross-functional advantage. Procurement was empowered. Legal got its time back.The result was more than faster contracts—it was a stronger partnership. Both teams could now focus on what they do best: Procurement on sourcing and delivery, and Legal on complex, high-impact matters. Together, they weren’t just working faster—they were working smarter.
DocJuris gave our procurement team the confidence to negotiate directly without constantly pulling legal into the weeds. With playbooks and guardrails built in, we’re moving faster while staying fully aligned with our risk standards.
