Case studies · Legal
Associates reading the contracts that matter.
First-pass document review that used to swallow three days now finishes before lunch — and a lawyer signs off on everything.
At Harlow & Crane, associates spent whole days on first-pass review: reading discovery, flagging clauses, summarising intake, calendaring deadlines. Necessary work, and a grind. The judgment they trained for sat underneath a pile of Ctrl-F.
It's also work where a mistake is expensive, so the instinct was to throw more hours at it. Hours the firm didn't really have.
A partner — who has never written a line of code — described the review checklist the firm already used. Their one technologist stood up agents that do the first pass: read the documents, flag the clauses that need a human, and draft the summary.
Nothing leaves the building on its own. Every agent stops for a lawyer's approval before anything is filed or sent, so the firm keeps the same control it always had over what goes out the door.
Agents they stood up
- first-pass-review — reads discovery and flags what needs a human
- clause-check — compares contract terms against the firm's playbook
- intake-summary — turns a new matter into a one-page brief
- deadline-calendar — pulls dates from filings, waits for sign-off
First-pass review time fell by roughly four fifths. Associates spend that time on argument and strategy — the part clients actually pay for and the part lawyers actually enjoy.
No one was replaced. The paralegals and associates are still here; they've handed the tedious first read to an agent and kept the judgment for themselves.
~80%
less time on first-pass review
0
documents filed without a lawyer's sign-off
3 days → hours
to clear a discovery batch
“I didn't go to law school to search PDFs for a keyword. Now I read what the agent flags, and I make the call. That's the job I wanted.”
Dana Okafor · Associate, Harlow & Crane
Build your first agent before the meeting ends.
Photograph by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash.