Most transactional partners would tell you the deal closes at signing. The data tells a different story. When we looked at over 6,200 matters across the UK, Europe, the US and Asia, the pattern was consistent – the bulk of transactional activity happens well before execution. Closing is the conclusion, not the main event. But it’s still where most firms concentrate their tooling, their partner attention and their operational rigour.
Inside the report, you’ll find:
- The data on where deal activity is actually concentrated across the lifecycle
- Five hallmarks of how the most advanced firms manage transactions
- A five-tier maturity model to locate where your firm sits today
- What the data shows about the cost of managing only closing
- Why the maturity question and the AI question are converging fast
The firms running structured transaction management across the full lifecycle look measurably different – fewer status-chasing emails, earlier identification of bottlenecks, faster onboarding for new joiners and a client-facing surface that doesn’t need a partner to rebuild it each Friday. The gap between them and the median firm is real, and it’s widening.
Download the report to see where your firm sits, what the data shows about the cost of managing only closing, and the one tier upward that’s a six-month programme rather than a transformation deck.
