Legal Agent
Reads the documents and shows you the clause, without giving an opinion.
What is legal agent?
A legal agent reads contracts and document sets, flags clauses that depart from positions your firm has already agreed, finds provisions across large volumes of paper, and tracks dates, with every output pointing at the exact clause it came from.
First pass contract review is expensive because it is slow and repetitive, not because it is difficult. Somebody reads forty pages to find the four clauses that differ from what your firm normally accepts.
The same is true of finding every change of control provision across two hundred agreements during due diligence, or noticing that a notice period expires in eleven days.
An agent does the reading and points at the clause. What it will not do is tell you what the clause means for your client, because that is legal advice and it belongs to a person admitted to practise.
Why these agents cite and never conclude
Duara builds legal agents from Nairobi for law firms and in house counsel who spend billable or scarce hours on first pass review that a machine could narrow.
We build these to cite, never to conclude. An output that summarises a contract without pointing at the clause is useless to a lawyer, because the first thing any competent lawyer does is check it, and a summary that cannot be checked simply gets read twice.
Who this is for
- First pass review eats junior time
- Due diligence means reading hundreds of agreements
- Deadlines are tracked in a spreadsheet
- Your positions live in a partner head rather than a playbook
Industries we serve
- Law firms
- In house legal teams
- Corporate secretarial services
- Banking legal departments
- Insurance legal teams
- Property and conveyancing
Problems this solves
These are volume problems rather than difficulty problems, which is exactly what makes them worth narrowing.
- First pass review is slow and repetitive. Forty pages are read to find four clauses that depart from standard, and the reading is the cost.
- Due diligence at volume. Finding every instance of one provision across two hundred agreements is mechanical and takes weeks.
- Deadlines tracked manually. Notice periods and renewal dates sit in a spreadsheet that somebody has to remember to open.
- Firm positions undocumented. What your firm will and will not accept lives in a partner head, so juniors reach different answers.
What we deliver
Contract review against your own documented positions, clause level search across document sets, date extraction and tracking, and a citation behind every single output.
First pass review against your firm playbook
Clause level search across large document sets
Extraction of dates, parties and obligations
Deadline tracking with advance warning
A citation to the exact clause behind every output
A written playbook where none currently exists
Features
- Citation on everything. Every flag points at the exact clause, because a summary a lawyer cannot check simply gets read twice.
- Your playbook, not market standard. Review runs against positions your firm has agreed rather than a generic notion of what is reasonable.
- Departures flagged, not judged. It reports that a clause differs from your position. What that means for the client stays with the lawyer.
- Volume search. One provision located across hundreds of agreements, which is the part of due diligence that is purely mechanical.
- Playbook written where absent. Most firms have positions but no document. Writing it down is frequently the more valuable half of the work.
Benefits
- First pass narrows sharply. Reading forty pages becomes reviewing four flagged clauses with the source in front of you.
- Due diligence stops being a headcount problem. Volume search removes the mechanical portion, leaving the judgement to lawyers.
- Consistency across juniors. A written playbook means two juniors reach the same position on the same clause.
- Deadlines stop depending on a spreadsheet. Notice periods and renewals warn in advance rather than being noticed late.
Technologies we use
- Clause identification. Recognising provision types across drafting styles rather than matching fixed wording.
- Playbook encoding. Your agreed positions expressed as checks the agent can apply consistently.
- Citation linking. Every output tied to the specific clause and page it derives from.
- Entity and date extraction. Pulling parties, values, terms and deadlines into structured form for tracking.
- Document set search. Locating a provision across hundreds of agreements in one pass.
Citation integrity is the whole engineering problem. A legal output that cannot be traced to a clause is not a time saving, it is a second reading.
How the process works, step by step
A legal agent usually takes six to eight weeks, and the playbook work is normally the longest part.
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Step 1
Free review of your workflow
We establish where lawyer time actually goes and which of it is reading rather than judging.
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Step 2
Playbook written
Your positions are documented, which is often the first time they have existed outside a partner head.
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Step 3
Calibration on closed matters
The agent runs against contracts your team has already reviewed, so its flags are compared to known answers.
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Step 4
Assisted review
Lawyers review with the agent flagging, and disagreements refine the playbook rather than the reverse.
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Step 5
Volume work added
Due diligence search and deadline tracking follow once review flags are trusted.
Quality assurance and how we work
The commitments attached to a system used in legal work.
- It does not give legal advice. It reports that a clause departs from your position. What that means for a client is advice, and it belongs to a person admitted to practise.
- Everything carries a citation. No flag appears without pointing at the exact clause, because an output a lawyer cannot check gets read twice rather than saving time.
- Calibrated against your closed matters. We test it on contracts your team has already reviewed, so you see where it agrees and where it does not before relying on it.
- Client documents never train public models. Privileged material stays within your systems and is never sent to a public model for training.
- Missed clauses are reported. Where calibration shows the agent failed to flag something your lawyers caught, we report it rather than tuning it quietly away.
Frequently asked questions about legal agent
Does it give legal advice?
No. It reports that a clause departs from your documented position. What that means for a client is advice and belongs to a person admitted to practise.
Can we rely on what it flags?
Check the citation, which is why every flag points at the exact clause. It narrows the reading, it does not replace the lawyer.
What if it misses a clause?
Calibration on closed matters is designed to find exactly that, and we report misses rather than tuning them quietly away.
Is client material confidential?
Yes. Privileged documents stay within your systems and are never sent to a public model for training.
What is a playbook?
A written record of positions your firm will and will not accept. Most firms have the positions and not the document.
What if we do not have one?
We write it with you, and firms frequently find this the more valuable half of the work regardless of the software.
Does it handle Kenyan law?
It reads your documents against your positions. It does not opine on Kenyan law, and any output requiring legal knowledge stays with your lawyers.
Can it search across many agreements?
Yes, which is the purely mechanical portion of due diligence and where volume savings are largest.
Does it draft contracts?
It can produce drafts from your own templates. Drafting judgement, negotiation and final wording stay with lawyers.
How does it handle different drafting styles?
It identifies provisions by what they do rather than by fixed wording, which is necessary since no two firms draft identically.
How long before it is useful?
Six to eight weeks, with the playbook work normally taking longer than the software.
Can it track deadlines?
Yes, extracting notice periods and renewal dates and warning in advance rather than relying on a spreadsheet being opened.
Will juniors stop learning review?
That is a real risk and worth managing. Most firms keep juniors reviewing with the agent flagging rather than removing them from the work.
Can it compare two versions of a contract?
Yes, and it flags substantive changes rather than every formatting difference.
Does it work on scanned documents?
Yes, though quality affects reliability, and we report where a scan was too poor to read confidently rather than guessing.
Can in house teams use it?
Yes, and in house teams often gain most because their volume is high and their headcount is fixed.
What if lawyers disagree with a flag?
The playbook is refined rather than the lawyer overruled. Disagreement usually means the written position was imprecise.
Does it handle documents in Swahili?
It can, though the majority of commercial drafting we see is in English, and we test on your actual documents before committing.
Who is responsible for an error?
Your lawyers, as they are now. The agent narrows reading and cites sources. It does not carry professional responsibility and we do not suggest otherwise.
What does document review cost per matter?
Document volume and page count determine it, quoted against your own matter figures before anything is agreed.
Glossary of terms
Terms used around document review.
- Playbook
- A written record of the positions a firm will and will not accept on common clauses.
- First pass review
- The initial read of a contract to identify what needs a lawyer attention.
- Due diligence
- Systematic review of a counterparty documents before a transaction.
- Clause extraction
- Locating and pulling out provisions of a particular type across documents.
- Citation
- The pointer from an output back to the exact clause supporting it.
- Notice period
- The time a party must give before terminating or renewing, commonly missed when tracked manually.
Related services in AI Agents
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