AI Proficiency in Six Steps for Transactional Lawyers

This article comes with a complimentary PDF guide featuring visual references for all the recommended exercises, allowing you to follow along and master AI for your legal practice.

A Practical Approach

Whether it’s a 50-page commercial lease or a startup’s financing agreement, the grunt work of redlining – spotting changes, enforcing your Playbook, and revising language – can consume hours. What if AI could handle the busy work and hand you a nearly-finished markup by the time you finish your coffee?

This practical guide outlines the six steps you can take to achieve AI proficiency for your legal practice, as well as how to use legal AI tools like Gavel’s new AI assistant Exec to redline and negotiate complex documents directly within Microsoft Word.

See what’s possible in this quick seven-minute overview of sample chat prompts, inserting additional context, and running Playbook rules:

AI Terms You Should Know

Before we get to the six steps, let’s cover a few AI key terms and concepts:

• Prompting: This is how you tell the AI what to do. Precise prompts get better output – think “Redline this clause from the tenant’s perspective” instead of “Fix this.”
• Context Injection: Providing the AI with more information, such as a Letter of Intent (LOI) or prior contract, to enhance accuracy.
• Playbooks: Your firm’s rules – like standard fallbacks or deal breakers – turned into AI-checkable logic.
• RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation): Combines AI with real data from your documents. Instead of relying solely on what the model was trained on, it pulls in relevant information (such as your Playbook or deal terms) in real time.

Now that we understand these foundational terms, let’s dive into the six steps to levelling up your legal practice with AI.

The Six 6 Steps to AI Proficiency

The best way to get proficient in using AI in your legal practice is to do just that - use it. You need to gain hands-on experience in a low-risk environment that offers high feature variation. That way, you’ll more readily see what’s possible, what the limitations are, and how to maintain control over the outputs.

The six steps to building practical AI proficiency are:

1.    Get set up.
2.    Ask questions.
3.    Provide context.
4.    Give instructions.
5.    Run a Playbook.
6.    Create new rules.

Download the free companion PDF to see visual examples of each step.

Step 1 - Get Set Up

Install Gavel Exec for free and download the sample templates (a Practice Template and a Context Template for a CA Commercial Lease Agreement). 

We’ll be utilising Exec’s features to learn how to ask questions, provide instructions, run a Playbook, and create new rules, all within Microsoft Word. You receive 15 free runs in Exec, making it an ideal environment to get accustomed to using AI in multiple ways, with no credit card or sales demo required.

The sample templates are there for you to practice with. You’ll use the Context Template in Step 3.

Step 2 - Ask Questions

Now, let’s practice with Gavel Exec’s chat feature! We can ask questions about the entire document or focus on individual sections. This is where proper Prompting is important.

Highlight the second paragraph of Section X in the Practice Template that starts with “If the tenant makes any improvements to the Premises.” Then, ask Exec, “What would be a typical response for the landlord’s obligations when it comes to what the landlord would pay for instead of the tenant for improvements to the premises?”

The executive will then explain typical responses and ask whether you’d like them to draft sample language. Feel free to experiment with answering “yes” to see what it suggests!

Step 3 - Provide Context

Provide Gavel Exec with relevant documents to provide context for the way you prefer to negotiate.

Practice by dragging and dropping the sample Context Template into the Gavel Exec chat. Once attached, enter the prompt: “Based on the template I just added, is there anything in this document that is missing or that I should negotiate for if I am representing the tenant in this agreement?”

Exec will then check the Practice Template against the Context Template and suggest areas where you may want to negotiate for missing or more favourable terms.

Step 4 - Give Instructions

Redline documents quickly by selecting clauses and giving instructions.

Try this by selecting the “Sublet/Assignment” clause in section XV of the Practice Template. Then, prompt Exec in the chat to “Rewrite this clause to allow the Tenant to sublet the Premises.”

Accept the suggested edits and sit back and watch Exec work its work!

Step 5 - Run a Playbook

Now that we’ve practised the chat feature, let’s move over to Playbooks. Remember, a “Playbook” is your firm’s rules – such as standard fallbacks or deal breakers – converted into AI-checkable logic.

To access Playbooks, click the book icon located to the right of the chat symbol at the top of the screen. Select the “Commercial Lease Agreement - Tenant” Playbook under the “Gavel” tab, click “Run this Playbook,” then look at why a particular rule failed in the document and experiment with accepting the proposed changes.

For example, try accepting the proposed change under the “Damage/Destruction - Termination Rights” rule.

Step 6 - Create New Rules

In our final step, you will have the opportunity to create and run your own Playbook and rules. This allows you to customise and have control over the standards Exec uses to suggest edits to the document.

1. Create your custom Playbook: Under the “Playbooks” section, click on the option to “+ Create new” and give it a name (ex, “CA Commercial Lease - Tenant”).
2. Create your custom rules: Practice creating a rule about indemnification clauses. Click the “+” then give it a name. The description is where you can add your instructions for this rule. For example, “Always suggest that the indemnification clause be balanced between the parties.”
3. Run your Playbook: Now, review the document against your new Playbook or specific rules to identify sections that require redlining.

Well done! Now, you have the basic skills needed to be proficient in using AI directly in Microsoft Word to quickly redline and negotiate documents in your transactional legal practice.

Keep it Going

Keep the learning going by continuing to practice with Gavel Exec!

You can also check out Gavel Founder and CEO Dorna Moini’s seven-part checklist for how to review AI outputs without losing control in this recent New Playbook for Contract Review article, which also contains ten real-world prompts to compare drafts, rewrite clauses, simplify provisions, apply Playbook checks, summarise key obligations, and more.

Ready to upgrade after your 15 free runs in Exec? Use the code LPI-EXEC5 for 5% off your first month!