Contract Brief: Become a Contract Manager

As with many professions, there is no one clear path to becoming a Contract Manager.

There are as many ways of practicing Contract Management as there are companies and the same goes for Contract Manager profiles.

Often multidisciplinary, these teams can be made up of Contract Managers with a legal, purchasing, engineering or financial background, with experience in their respective fields before becoming a Contract Manager. 

This was not the case for Hasna and this is precisely what we wanted to discover with her.

Hasna Ballouch is 27 years old, originally from Oyonnax and has been living in Lyon since the beginning of her studies.
With a legal background, she first started her career as a Contract Manager before switching to the purely legal side of the force.

Particularly interesting since it is more common to do the reverse switch. 

How does one train a freshly graduated lawyer in Contract Management in the field? What did she learn from these Contract Managers with different profiles? How does she see the collaboration between a lawyer and a contract manager? We share her experience with you.

Become a Contract Manager after graduation and train on the job

With a Master's degree in hand, Hasna landed a position as a Contract Management Consultant at Piman Executive in a few months.

Unlike many Contract Managers with a legal profile that we have received on Words of the LawyersHasna started her career as a Contract Manager, without having to go through a legal training.

Hasna had notions in Contract Management following the courses followed in M2 Contract Law and Practice. While she was considering taking the entrance exam to the legal profession, she was contacted by PIMAN Executive, a consulting firm specialized in contract management.

"I was afraid to become a Contract Manager right away, so I started with an internship. I knew that I had mastered Contract Law from my training, but I knew that Contract Management was something very complex, very advanced, that there was an operational aspect that I didn't know and I didn't know if I was going to be able to adapt, even though I like operational work, engineering, and so I didn't know if I had the shoulders for it. After a few weeks, I realized that this was what I wanted to do. It's a mix of legal and operational and it's definitely not theoretical. In January 2020, I switched to a permanent contract and started my first assignment and then joined Emmanuel Tannay's team at Schneider Electric in June 2020″

Listen to the excerpt from his episode 👇

Training alongside people from a variety of backgrounds 

By working with different profiles, Hasna learned to handle different Contract Management practices, beyond the legal, but also learned a lot about the very purpose of contracts and the aeronautical sector.

"When you are a lawyer, you see a contract as a legal act. However, it is so much more than that. When you talk to contract managers from an engineering background, you see how a contract can be read in many different ways. The engineering view of the contract is fascinating." 

In her practice, Hasna was struck by the interpretation of certain clauses or the mechanics involved. "It took me a while to understand that it also worked, my vision was not perfect, legal contract management is not the only way to see things. And above all, for certain markets, for certain companies, the profile of an engineering contract manager is potentially more suitable.

"I also learned very operational things: about nuclear power plants, ships, frigates etc."

To be a good contract manager, you need to know how to use contractual tools and also to understand the business sector in which you operate. And for that, there is nothing better than apprendre aux côtés des Contract Managers with several years of experience or internal clients who are technical experts in their field.

Listen to the excerpt from his episode 👇

Its definition of Contract Management

For Hasna Ballouch, Contract Management is the identification, analysis and management of risks related to the contractual relationship.
"By risks, we mean the risks of customer deterioration, through to the risks of poor performance and even claims.

There are as many Contract Managers as there are companies, just as there are as many Contract Managers as there are companies. Similarly, there is as much Contract Management as there are sectors of activity: it will not be practised in the same way when dealing with public or private contracts, or if you are in the pharmaceutical or nuclear sector.

In short, for Hasna, the Contract Manager is the contract doctor.

Lawyer / Contract Manager: an infallible duo

"For me, a contract manager is the ally of the lawyer and vice versa. Especially when you have two different profiles. It's an infallible duo when it works well."

During her episode, Hasna told us about her duo with Sylvain Moureau.
"We worked as a team and you could feel it in the negotiations, in our analyses, in our exchanges. We learned from each other and we were united in certain situations.

Listen to the excerpt from his episode 👇

From Contract Manager to Lawyer: "I will never write a contract in the same way again".

Nicolas Le FlochNicolas Le Floch, Contract Manager, whom we interviewed a few months ago on Paroles de Juristes, confided to us that he would never write contracts in the same way if he were to become a lawyer again. In the case of Hasna, who is currently a lawyer, we were curious to know if she shared the same point of view and "it is clearly [her] case"!

"Today, when I carry out contractual analyses as a lawyer, I have a different position from the one I would have had if I had not been a Contract Manager.
When you are a Contract Manager, you have different exchanges with the operational staff, particularly during the execution of the contract. Nowadays, the practice is to call on the lawyer when the situation becomes conflictual. Whereas as a Contract Manager, I was called in well beforehand.

For Hasna, the objective of a contract is not that it is perfectly written, totally in line with the contractual rules. The contract must be easy to use for the operational staff. That they can use it and quickly find a solution, unblock a situation they are facing.

"Today when I write a contract or negotiate it, I dwell less on points that used to offend me. In execution, it's not the extra or extra word that will change the contractual relationship. And I know that in some areas, we are not going to go before the judge. So there's no point in writing a contract as if you were planning to go before a judge. So I would never write a contract in the same way as if I had not been a contract manager. I would never practice law as I would if I had not been a Contract Manager.

Listen to the excerpt from his episode 👇