When contract management software company Ironclad released its Jurist AI legal assistant software in November, the company gave lawyers in-house and in private practice what it calls a fully editable Microsoft Word-native environment for drafting and reviewing documents, eliminating the need for users to switch between software for different tasks.
Microsoft Word (docx) is the environment most lawyers are already working in, so by having the new tool function in that format, the company is hoping to make it easy for otherwise wary users to embrace the benefits of artificial intelligence when they draft, edit, review and research contracts, Michel Feaster, chief product officer at Ironclad, told Legal Dive.
“People love the fact that they’re natively connected,” Feaster said. “Jurist just goes and makes edits for you” in the Word document they’re already comfortable working in.
This approach enables lawyers to edit AI-generated outputs in real time, alter sections of a document and compare multiple contracts side by side, Feaster said. The software also personalizes outputs by referencing past company documents such as templates and executed agreements.
In addition to its docx-native environment, the software uses what technical specialists call a multi-agent architecture. This means the tool draws on more than a single large language model, enabling users to rout prompts to the most suitable large language model before returning results. By having that capability, users effectively break down complex prompts into subtasks, which each subtask getting processed by the most appropriate LLM.
That capability is especially important for a legal application, Feaster said, because the large amount of unstructured data lawyers work with is processed better if the task doesn’t rely on a single LLM.
“Legal is the perfect application for LLMs, because LLMs are exceptionally good at working with unstructured data — which is the lion’s share of the types of documents lawyers work with,” Feaster said. “We built Jurist to help bridge this gap and wanted to create something that was congruent with the ways that lawyers are already working.”
Jurist also has the ability to show its work, Feaster said. That means users can view the AI’s reasoning and source citations in real time, helping to address concerns over hallucinations or other poorly targeted citations.
“Lawyers want to know how Jurist got to the answer, and that transparency is critical,” Feaster said.
During its five-month beta testing, Feaster said, Jurist received positive feedback from corporate legal teams and law firms. Katelyn Canning, director and head of legal at Ocrolus, an AI-assisted loan underwriting software company, said the tool helped her streamline manual workflows.
“Jurist … eliminated hours of manual review from our document review process,” she said. “Its intuitive interface lets us easily define our own parameters, transforming tasks like NDA reviews into a streamlined workflow.”
Zuhair Saadat, contracts manager at Signifyd, which provides an e-commerce fraud-protection platform for companies, said the software has simplified the contract review and drafting processes.
“Performing a [mutual non-disclosure agreement] review or drafting custom clauses for an order form typically takes an hour to a day,” he said. “Using Jurist, we could do this in minutes — in some cases seconds — depending on complexity. If I need to edit the output, translate it, or ask a question about it, I can do that in the product without leaving.”
Given the sensitive nature of legal work, Ironclad has prioritized privacy and security in the tool’s design, Feaster said. The platform has guardrails against third-party AI LLM providers, like OpenAI or Google, which cannot retain or train on customer data. Additionally, Ironclad holds enterprise-grade security certifications, including for GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2 compliance. SOC 2 is a cybersecurity compliance framework.
“We are committed to being secure, responsible and privacy-forward,” Feaster said.
Looking ahead, Ironclad plans to expand Jurist’s capabilities by enhancing its research functionalities and integrating it further with its CLM platform. According to Jeremy Smith, the company’s president, the tool is part of a broader mission to empower the legal community.
“We’ve released Jurist as a standalone product, built on Ironclad architecture, because we feel this will benefit the entire legal community — whether they already use Ironclad or not,” he said.
