Part 1 The problemWhy teams need this
01 · THE PROBLEM
Most lawyer hours on a contract go into reading it end to end to find the three clauses that deviate from your standard. Let the first pass happen automatically, and your team spends its time on judgement, not on finding the page.
Part 2 How it worksWhat it does, step by step
02 · WHAT IT DOES
Contracts arrive by email or a shared folder. The workflow reads every clause, pulls the key terms into one standard format, scores the risk and flags anything non-standard. High-risk contracts come with a redline summary, and each one goes to the right reviewer. First-pass review time drops by 70%.
03 · HOW IT RUNS
Step by step, as built.
Take in the contract
Email and Drive intake merge into one path; the PDF text is extracted and split into clauses.
Extract to a schema
Claude pulls the key clauses into a fixed structure, so every contract is compared on the same fields.
Score the risk
A scoring step flags non-standard and high-risk terms against the firm's playbook.
Redline what matters
High-risk contracts get a redline summary before anyone opens them.
Route and record
A Switch sends each contract to the right reviewer by type; the review is logged in Airtable and the requester gets a reply.
04 · WHERE A PERSON STAYS IN
The machine drafts. A person decides.
A lawyer reviews every contract. The workflow does the first read and points them at the clauses that need a decision.
05 · TOOLS AND APPS
Built around the systems already in the process.
06 · WHEN SOMETHING BREAKS
Failure is designed in.
- 7nodes retry automatically when an external API fails.
- 2decision points (IF or Switch) check the data before it moves on.
- ✓Anything unhandled triggers our central error workflow, so a crash gets reported instead of failing silently.
Standard on every build
- Schema validation before downstream writes
- Retry and error routes for external API failures
- Duplicate-safe processing and idempotent updates
- Human approval where the action carries business risk
- Execution logging for support and audit review
Part 3 The impactWhat it's worth, and how we'd build yours
07 · PROJECTED IMPACT
What it should change in the business.
Projections for a typical deployment. The calculation below shows the math, and you can put in your own numbers.
08 · ROI CALCULATION
How it pays back in your business.
The starting numbers are a hypothetical deployment sized to the projections above. Change any of them to your own volumes and costs, and the math updates underneath.
- Full-time equivalent freed
- 0.6 people
- Gross value
- $40,320
- Running cost
- −$720
- Return per $1 of running cost
- $56
The math: 80 contracts reviewed × 90 min × 12 months × 70% ÷ 60 = 1,008 hours a year × $40/hour = $40,320. Net value = gross value − $720 running cost a year.
09 · HOW WE'D BUILD YOURS
How we'd build yours.
- Discover: map the current process, systems, volumes, owners and exceptions.
- Design: define the canonical data model, approvals, retries and system boundaries.
- Build: implement credentials, nodes, validation and observable error routes.
- Prove: run controlled data through success, duplicate and failure scenarios.
- Operate: publish runbooks, ownership and measurable service levels.
