Checklists
Last updated
Last updated
Reviewing documents is a spectrum, ranging from a completely manual process (the traditional way, no computers involved) to a completely automated way (either using playbook-like rules, or even without any rules at all, as is the case with AutoCheck).
In terms of automation, checklists lies in the middle of this spectrum. It assumes that the checks that must be made were predefined — e.g., collectively by the legal team, or by a knowledge lawyer, or by some internal playbook — and will then be primarily checked by a human lawyer. But in doing so, the human lawyer is assisted by a computer, keeps the checklist on the computer next to the opened document, and can easily change clauses with the help of GenAI.
Checklists can help to bridge the gap between the traditional reviewing process and the fully automated process with GenAI. Not every legal professional will want to rely on the black-box approach of GenAI, and not every document is sufficiently standardised to be a good candidate for automated reviewing. That's where checklists can help.
Checklists can also serve as a simple source of inspiration. They're called checklists, but you can also use them as simply a list to keep in mind. You don't have to actually cross-off items in the list — often it is a big help during reviewing that you have a nice list of items that you want to peek at from time to time. Particularly for junior lawyers this can be a big help, to ensure they don't forget crucial elements.
You can open a checklist in three ways:
By going to the Write & Rewrite module, and:
when no tab has yet been opened yet: by clicking on the button at the bottom and choosing Open checklist
when a tab is already visible, by clicking on the green + New button and choosing Open checklist
By performing an automated review (using Review document) and converting the results prepared by the GenAI towards a checklist by clicking on the Export button inside of a review, and choosing Checklist to convert the results compiled by the GenAI towards a checklist.
Either way, checklists will present themselves on the screen as follows:
Under the hood, checklists are actually reviewing categories, with each rule turning into an item on the checklist. Checklists "piggyback" on the storage and management facilities of the reviewing categories, and any reviewing category can be turned into a checklist.
Accordingly, please consult our webpages about building rules for reviewing categories. Essentially, however, this boils down to:
Opening one of the many samples ClauseBuddy provides for you.
Converting an existing playbook or checklist into a list of rules / checklist items:
Either selecting some text in an opened Word-document that contains those rules, and using GenAI to convert an existing free-format document. The GenAI will then interpret the text and perform the extraction & conversion.
Or, if your document is well-structured (e.g., because it was based on one of the samples), converting it immediately without any GenAI being involved.
By toggling the checkbox at the very left of each item you are, well, checking an item. The idea is that a checked item means "I've checked this", as is for example the case with the Invoicing Requirements and Late Payment Interest items in the following screenshot:
When you click on a label, there are many more options:
In the Status box you can write down the status of the item. Perhaps you will for example want to say "Check with John" or "Non-issue" or "only if clause 4.6 applies".
You can assign it a colour that makes sense to you. The colour corresponds to the colouring of what ClauseBuddy uses in the automated reviewing:
Dark green means "requirement is fully met"
Lighter green means "requirement is mostly met", i.e. most aspects are met
Orange means "partially met", i.e. only some aspects
Red means "not met"
Grey means "irrelevant"
White means "haven't yet decided"
You can select some text in your opened Word-document and then click on the Redraft selection using this requirement command. ClauseBuddy will then send your selected text to the GenAI-engine and ask it to rephrase that text so that it meets the requirement in light grey (in the screenshot above No advance payment shall be required prior to delivery).
Remember that you can always Undo & Redo your operations using the buttons in the top-left corner.
Checklists are intended to be temporary tools to support your work, so loading & saving shouldn't be your primary concern. Nevertheless, you can save a checklist to continue working on it later.
When saving, it is crucial to understand that ClauseBuddy:
only saves the state of your checklist, i.e. not your currently opened document
saves your checklist on your local computer, i.e. not on the ClauseBuddy server. If you log out, all your checklists will be lost.
You can save a checklist by clicking on the Save button and then either choosing the first option (to save over the current item) or choosing Save as... (to save under a new name).
You can optionally load a previously saved checklist by going into the Saved menu item
If you want to delete a previously saved checklist, hold down Shift and click on a previously saved item.
ClauseBuddy currently doesn't let you share the contents of your work-in-progress with team members — remember, the checklists are designed to be temporary lists, easily opened and quickly dismissed again.
Even so, you can export your checklist to a new MS Word-file by clicking on the Export button. It will look like the following:
