Read a contract, lease or terms with AI before you sign

Produces: a plain-language summary of the document, a list of the clauses that matter to you, each checked against the original, and written questions for the other party.

Use it when you have a lease, job contract, phone or broadband plan, gym membership, software terms or similar in front of you and want to know what you are agreeing to.

Not when you are already in a dispute, have received a court or eviction notice, or are told to sign today. Go straight to a person (see the end of this page).

You need the full document as text or a file, an assistant you are allowed to paste it into, and about 45 minutes for 10 pages. The steps and prompts are our suggestion.

Why you check every clause

Models (the AI systems behind chatbots) get legal detail wrong, confidently. Asked specific, verifiable questions about real US federal court cases, general chatbots gave wrong answers (hallucinated) between 58% of the time (ChatGPT 4) and 88% (Llama 2). They also "often fail to correct a user's incorrect legal assumptions" (Dahl et al., Journal of Legal Analysis, 2024). That study was about case law, not contracts, but the habit is the same.
Specialist tools do too. Paid legal research tools from LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters "each hallucinate between 17% and 33% of the time" on over 200 legal queries (Magesh et al., Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2025).
Models can also miss what is there. In a 2025 test on clauses in commercial contracts, open models (ones anyone can download and run) replied "no related clause" more often "even when relevant clauses are present" (Liu et al., ContractEval, preprint).
They can still be useful. A 2024 study found that "advanced models match or exceed human accuracy in determining legal issues" in contracts, compared with junior lawyers and outsourced reviewers, against answers set by senior lawyers (Martin et al., preprint).

So the assistant is a fast first reader. Treat its summary as a map of where to look, never as the contract.

Steps

#	Step	Time	Check
1	Get the full, final version, including any schedules, annexes and terms "incorporated by reference" (linked or named elsewhere).	5 min	You have every page and every document it points to.
2	Remove personal details: names, addresses, signatures, account, policy and ID numbers, bank details, salary if you prefer. Replace each with a label such as `[TENANT]` or `[EMPLOYER]`. Keep section numbers, amounts and dates. See What not to paste. If a job contract has a confidentiality clause, read it first.	5 min	A search for your surname and account number finds nothing.
3	Paste or upload the document with the review prompt below (the instructions in the box), in a fresh chat.	3 min	The reply names the last section of the document. If it does not match yours, it did not read it all: paste it in parts.
4	Check every quoted clause against your copy. Search the original for five or six words from each quote.	15 min	Each quote is found, word for word, at the section number given. Mark any that is not.
5	Search the original yourself for missed clauses, using the keywords below.	10 min	Every hit is on the assistant's list or you have added it.
6	Run the questions prompt, then send the questions you still have to the other party in writing.	5 min	You have written answers, or you know which point is unanswered.
7	Decide whether you need a person (see below).	2 min	You have a reason, written down, for signing, asking or walking away.

Contract review prompt · v1.0

Below is a <DOCUMENT_TYPE> I am being asked to sign as the <MY_ROLE>.
I am in <COUNTRY_OR_STATE>.

1. In plain language, summarise what I agree to in 8 to 12 short points.
2. Then list every clause about each of these topics:
   money (rent, fees, price changes, deposits); length of the term and renewal;
   automatic renewal; how I or they can cancel or end it, and notice periods;
   penalties and early-exit charges; liability and indemnity (who pays if
   something goes wrong); my data (what is collected, shared or sold);
   disputes (arbitration, class action waivers, which courts or laws apply).
For each clause give: the topic, the section number, the exact text quoted
word for word, and one plain sentence on what it means for me.
Rules:
- Quote only text that appears in the document. Never paraphrase inside quotes.
- If a topic has no clause, write "not found". Do not guess.
- Say which clauses are unusual or one-sided, and why, as a question for me
  to check, not as a legal conclusion.
- End by telling me the number and heading of the last section you read.
---
<DOCUMENT_TEXT>

Replace the following:

<DOCUMENT_TYPE>: such as residential lease, employment contract or mobile phone plan terms.
<MY_ROLE>: such as tenant, employee or customer.
<COUNTRY_OR_STATE>: where you live. Rules on deposits, notice and cancellation vary by place.
<DOCUMENT_TEXT>: the cleaned document from step 2.

Keywords for step 5. Search the original for: renew, automatic, terminat, cancel, notice, fee, charge, increase, penalt, liab, indemn, arbitrat, class action, waive, governing law, data, share, third part. A clause the assistant called "not found" but your search finds is a reason to trust the rest of its list less.

Questions prompt · v1.0

From the clauses we checked, list the questions I should ask <OTHER_PARTY>
before signing. Plain, polite, one point per question, each with the section
number. Include anything about total cost, how and when I can leave, what
happens if I pay late, and anything you marked as unusual.

Replace <OTHER_PARTY> with the landlord, the employer or the provider. Send the questions by email, and keep the answers. A promise made on the phone is hard to rely on if the contract says something else.

When to get a person instead

US: the Legal Services Corporation's find legal aid tool lets you "enter an address or city below to find an LSC-funded legal aid organization near you". LSC funds civil legal aid for low-income Americans.
UK: Citizens Advice offers "confidential advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free", including on housing, work and consumer problems. Its main site covers England, with separate pages for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Elsewhere: look for your country's legal aid body, a tenants' or consumer advice service, or a trade union if it is a job contract.

Bring the original, your list of checked clauses and your questions. For other legal and money questions, see Health, money and legal questions: green lights and red lines.

How to tell it worked

Every clause on your list was found word for word in the original, at the right section number.
Your keyword search found nothing the list missed, or you added what it missed.
You can say in your own words how much it costs, how long it lasts, how to leave and what it costs to leave.
Your questions have written answers, or you decided to get advice.
It has failed if you signed on the strength of the summary alone.

Sources

Dahl M, Magesh V, Suzgun M, Ho DE. Large Legal Fictions: Profiling Legal Hallucinations in Large Language Models. Journal of Legal Analysis, 2024. Peer-reviewed study. Link
Magesh V et al. Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2025. Peer-reviewed study. Link
Liu S et al. ContractEval: Benchmarking LLMs for Clause-Level Legal Risk Identification in Commercial Contracts, 2025. Benchmark (preprint). Link
Martin L et al. Better Call GPT, Comparing Large Language Models Against Lawyers, 2024. Preprint. Link
Legal Services Corporation. Find legal aid. Official service directory. Link
Citizens Advice. About us. Advice charity. Link

Changes

v1.010 Oct 2026first version