What is a Playbook?
A Playbook is a structured set of contract review rules that encodes your firm's legal expertise into explicit criteria, guidance, and evaluation standards. Instead of reviewing contracts ad-hoc — relying on individual judgement each time — a Playbook allows you to define your standards once and apply them consistently across every contract review.
Playbooks are created and managed in the LexHub web application and executed during contract review in the LexHub Word plugin, but is also used while running workflows with the web application. This means your standards are defined centrally and applied where the actual contract work happens.
Why Playbooks matter
Contract review is one of the most time-consuming and inconsistency-prone tasks in legal work. Different reviewers focus on different things, apply different thresholds, and produce different outputs. Playbooks address this by making your review standards explicit and reusable.
With a Playbook in place:
Every reviewer applies the same criteria to every contract
Junior lawyers and experienced counsel work to the same standard
Findings are structured, consistent, and easy to act on
Your firm's expertise is preserved and scalable — not locked in individual heads
How a Playbook is structured
Each Playbook is made up of a set of rules. Each rule defines how the AI should evaluate a specific aspect of a contract. A rule can include:
The clause type — the area of the contract the rule applies to, such as limitation of liability, termination, or data protection (optional)
Evaluation criteria — what is considered Preferred, Acceptable, or Unacceptable in the contract
Guidance text — what to do if the clause does not meet the standard, such as suggested language or a fallback position
Priority or risk level — how significant this rule is relative to others (optional)
Together, these rules translate your firm's legal judgement into a format the AI can apply systematically.
Creating a Playbook
Step 1: Open the Playbooks section Go to Playbooks in the LexHub web application and click Create playbook.
Step 2: Upload a model contract A dialog will prompt you to upload a model contract. This is the document the AI will use as the basis for your Playbook — typically your firm's preferred or approved version of the contract type you want to review against. Upload a document that reflects your standard position as closely as possible.
Step 3: Let the AI generate your rules The AI reads the uploaded contract and automatically generates a set of draft rules based on the content of its clauses. This gives you a structured starting point without having to build every rule from scratch.
Step 4: Name and configure your Playbook Once the analysis is complete, the dialog will ask you to provide:
Name — a clear title that reflects the Playbook's scope, such as "SPA Review – Buyer-side" or "NDA Standard Review – English law"
Description — a brief summary of what the Playbook covers and when it should be used
Instructions — any additional guidance for the AI on how to apply the Playbook during a review
Click Confirm to create the draft Playbook.
Step 5: Review and verify the rules The draft Playbook is now created, but it is not yet ready to use. Go through each rule the AI has generated and verify that it accurately reflects your firm's standards. You can edit, refine, or remove rules at this stage. This review step is important — the quality of the Playbook depends on how well the rules reflect your actual review criteria.
Step 6: Publish the Playbook Once you are satisfied with the rules, publish the Playbook. It will then be available to users in your workspace for use in the Word plugin.
Using a Playbook in the Word plugin
Step 1: Open the LexHub Word plugin Open the contract you want to review in Microsoft Word and activate the LexHub plugin from the Word toolbar.
Step 2: Select a Playbook In the plugin, select the relevant Playbook from your workspace library. Choose the Playbook that matches the contract type and your role in the transaction — for example, a buyer-side SPA Playbook when reviewing an acquisition agreement on behalf of the buyer.
Step 3: Run the review Click Run review. The AI analyses the contract against every rule in the selected Playbook and presents its findings in the Word side panel.
Step 4: Review the findings Findings are grouped by clause or rule and presented with a clear status for each:
Acceptable — the clause meets the standard defined in the Playbook
Not acceptable — the clause does not meet the standard and requires attention
Needs attention — the clause requires review but may be negotiable depending on context
Each finding includes a short explanation of how the rule was applied, a citation showing which text in the contract triggered the finding, and a link to navigate directly to the relevant clause in the document.
Step 5: Act on the findings For each finding, you can:
Navigate to the clause — jump directly to the relevant section in the contract
Copy suggested language — if the Playbook includes a fallback clause or suggested amendment, copy it directly into the document
Mark as resolved or acknowledged — track your progress through the review as you work through each finding
Trust features
Every finding in a Playbook review includes two trust features to help you assess and verify the output:
Citations Each finding shows the exact text in the contract that triggered it, so you can see precisely what the AI identified and why.
Reasoning Each finding includes a short explanation of how the rule was applied to the identified text, helping you understand the AI's assessment before acting on it.
Tips for getting the most out of Playbooks
Start with your most-used contract types. Build Playbooks for the contracts you review most frequently first — NDAs, service agreements, or SPAs — where the consistency benefit will be felt most quickly.
Be explicit in your criteria. The more precisely you define what is Preferred, Acceptable, and Unacceptable, the more accurate and useful the AI's findings will be. Avoid vague criteria such as "reasonable" without further definition.
Include guidance text. Findings are most actionable when they come with a suggested next step. Adding fallback language or a negotiating position to each rule turns a finding into a ready-to-use output.
Create role-specific Playbooks. A buyer-side and a seller-side Playbook for the same contract type will produce very different findings. Build separate Playbooks for different transaction roles rather than trying to cover both in one.
Review and update Playbooks regularly. As your firm's standards evolve — following changes in law, market practice, or internal policy — update the relevant Playbooks so that every review reflects your current position.
Duplicate before you customise. If you need a variation of an existing Playbook for a specific matter or jurisdiction, duplicate it first and edit the copy. This preserves the original and avoids accidental changes to your standard.