Is LiveCycle the right tool for making a template-based Contract?

Is LiveCycle the right tool for making a template-based Contract?

Here is our scenario:

We are in a large corporate environment, serving global stakeholders, and offer a fairly standard agreement (contract) that is most often printed and manually signed. It consists of:

1. a main body that includes effective date and term (years), parties, contact for notice, terms and conditions, plus a place for manual signatures
2. an attachment (exhibit) that includes standard text plus 1 or more equipment-specific paragraphs that list the different unique IDs of the equipment, plus site name, address, configuration, etc. Approximately 5 lines of text per item.
3. an optional license attachment where the terms do not change, but the variable information includes: customer name and address, agreement effective date, and the names + titles of 2-3 (or more) signatories at the end

We prefer to make this contract appear similar to a ‘click-wrap’ agreement, in that it should be laid out in such a way that indicates that the terms are not negotiable. For example, when providing a drafted document (.doc) version of the agreement, the recipients have a greater tendency to want to negotiate the terms compared with when we present them a (different) simplified form that has fill-in blanks, and then terms and conditions attached thereafter. Somehow the ability to redline a document draws in changes and opinions like moths to a lantern.

We would like to craft this agreement as a fill-in-the-blank (PDF?) form so that:

- the party names carry through to several places within the document

- if there are multiple parties (2 or more), the document expands accordingly

- signatory names and titles are entered only once

- the equipment attachment (#2) can include 1 to n items (think of rows in a subform)

- a Yes/No toggle can include or exclude the optional license (#3)

- the effective date, parties, and signatories carry over to the optional license (#3), when included

- wish: include the ability for some optional phrases that we can activate when the situation requires

- wish: the ability to display an additional language to create a side-by-side English + <other> agreement.

We currently make English only agreements, plus side-by-side agreements with Japanese, Portuguese, French, Spanish, and Italian.

We currently use Adobe Acrobat X, with LiveCycle Designer CS2

So I go back to the original question:

Is LiveCycle the right tool for making a template-based Contract, with the features that we describe above?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or guidance!

- Nat Z.

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