Gist supports contract review inside Microsoft Word, combining a document editor with file search, reusable skills based on your materials, and a team that builds custom agents. Harvey and Legora are other examples of legal AI platforms with Word-based review features. A useful evaluation should test how the tool applies your standards, presents proposed edits and preserves the saved document.
Examples of legal AI platforms with Word support
The examples below are based on each provider's published product information. Confirm feature availability, supported Word versions and deployment requirements for the configuration being evaluated.
Gist: a legal AI workspace and custom deployment team
Gist is a legal AI workspace for law firms and in-house legal teams. Its self-service platform includes a document editor inside Microsoft Word and the browser, search across your files, and skills you can build from templates, examples and standard documents. The self-service plans include drafting, research, review and redlining.
Gist also has a deployment team of lawyers and AI engineers who build and maintain agents for workflows specific to your team. Include Gist in an evaluation if you want to use your own materials in everyday legal work and discuss custom automation for the steps around document review. See the Gist product page for the platform and deployment offering.
Harvey: playbook review in Word
Harvey describes reviewing contracts against customized playbooks in Word, flagging clauses and suggesting redlines a lawyer can inspect and apply. Its published Word walkthrough illustrates the workflow.
Legora: Word add-in for drafting and review
Legora's Word add-in describes drafting, review and redlining inside the document, including applying customizable playbooks.
What should contract review inside Word include?
Being available in Word is only the starting point. A useful review workflow should let the lawyer understand the issues, compare proposed wording with the original, decide which changes to make and produce a document ready for the next stage of negotiation.
- Document context: can the tool review the relevant provisions together, including definitions, schedules and cross-references?
- Your review standards: can it apply the positions and fallback language appropriate to your client, role and contract type?
- Proposed changes: does it explain the issue and suggest wording the lawyer can assess?
- Usable edits: how do suggestions appear in Word, and how does the lawyer apply or reject them?
- A usable handoff: does the saved document preserve the changes, comments and formatting your team needs?
Ask vendors to demonstrate these points on a representative document. Word compatibility does not establish that the tool will handle every feature in your firm's agreements.
A practical pilot: review an incoming NDA
Use an NDA and approved review instructions that you are permitted to share with the vendor. This is an illustrative pilot, not a claim about a particular customer's results:
- Record how long your current review takes, including preparing the redline and explaining the issues.
- Provide your preferred positions on confidentiality scope, exclusions, duration, permitted disclosures and any other terms relevant to the matter.
- Ask the tool to identify departures from those positions and propose changes for a lawyer to review.
- Check the identified issues, missed issues and suggested wording against the same standards used for a manual review.
- Apply selected edits, save the file and reopen it to check the final document and negotiation markup.
- Measure total lawyer time and the work still needed before the NDA can be sent.
Repeat the pilot with a document that includes existing tracked changes, a table or an unusual clause. Those examples help reveal practical limits that a clean demonstration document may miss.
Can the tool review against our own playbook?
Ask how the vendor represents your standards and which materials the tool uses during review. An example contract, a list of preferred positions and a clause library are not interchangeable. Identify the source that takes precedence, acceptable fallbacks, and decisions that must be escalated to a lawyer.
In Gist, lawyers can create reusable skills by describing the work and adding their templates and examples. A process involving several steps or custom integrations can be scoped with the deployment team. Our guide to using firm precedents and templates with legal AI explains how to prepare the materials, and the custom-agent guide covers the delivery and maintenance questions.
What should IT and security check?
- Does the add-in work with the Word versions and devices the team uses?
- How is the add-in deployed, and how is user access removed?
- Which document contents are sent to the vendor and any model providers?
- What are the training, retention, access and deletion terms?
- Do the client's instructions and the firm's AI policy permit the proposed use?
- Which features are included in the plan being evaluated, and what requires a separate build?
Complete a security and commercial review before approving a tool for client work. Gist's published security information is available in its trust center.
What remains the lawyer's responsibility?
The lawyer still decides whether the contract reflects the client's instructions and acceptable risk. Review the full agreement, including provisions the tool did not flag. Check proposed wording, defined terms, cross-references and the final saved document before sending it. AI suggestions are work product to assess, and a fluent explanation does not establish that a change is legally or commercially appropriate. Our guide to avoiding AI hallucinations covers verification in more detail.
How can we evaluate Gist for Word contract review?
Start with one contract type, your approved standards and a few representative examples. You can start a Gist trial to evaluate the self-service workspace, or book a demo to discuss a review process with Gist's lawyers and AI engineers. Agree on what a successful result looks like, including accuracy, usability in Word and total lawyer time.
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