Use Playbooks to Review Contracts

Overview

A playbook is a guide that helps individuals and teams review, analyze, and negotiate contracts efficiently and consistently. It typically consists of guidelines on how to handle key clauses (e.g., indemnification, limitation of liability, confidentiality, or intellectual property) so that contracts are handled the same way every time.

With Harvey, you can apply a playbook directly to a contract to streamline your review. Harvey compares the document against your organization's established positions and surfaces what needs a closer look.

This article explains how playbooks work in Harvey, how to run a playbook review in both the Harvey web app and the Harvey for Word add-in, and how to export your review summaries.

How Playbooks Work in Harvey

Designated playbook managers can create, upload and maintain playbooks in your workspace. They can then grant users access to view a playbook and run it against a contract, either in the Harvey web app or the Harvey for Word add-in.

When you run a playbook review against a contract, Harvey reviews each contract clause against the rules in the playbook. For every rule, you’ll see one of three possible outcomes reflected in the playbook review:

Along with each outcome, Harvey provides suggested wording to help close the gap between the contract's language and your playbook's standard or fallback positions. From there, you can review, adjust, and apply the suggestions as redlines.

Additionally, Harvey will flag any potential gaps that are not covered by the playbook. Each flagged provision appears as its own list item, along with suggested redlines and comments specific to that provision. You can review and resolve these flags alongside the standard rules from the playbook.

Run a Playbook Review in the Harvey Web App

Ask Harvey to run a playbook review in a new thread, or manually select a playbook to run from the Library.

In a New Thread

1. Start a new thread in the Harvey word app.
2. Select Files and attach the contract to the thread.
3. In your prompt, ask Harvey to run a specific playbook and submit your query.

In Library

1. Go to Library and select Playbooks.
2. Select the playbook you’d like to run.
3. At the top right, select Run.
4. Attach your contract and submit your query.

Before Harvey runs the review, it will show a Customize playbook review options menu. Use this menu to tailor the review. You can choose a representing party, paper type, review mode, review scope, or attach additional files and context.

Review Harvey’s Suggestions in the Web App

When the review is complete, Harvey flags suggested edits based on each rule. Harvey also provides recommended language to conform the clause to your Standard position or any applicable Fallback positions. Additionally, any potential gaps that are not covered by the playbook are flagged for review.

You can apply the suggested edits directly in the Harvey web app, or you can export your redlined document and continue your review in Word.

Review and Apply Edits in the Web App

1. In your thread, select the Word file provided by Harvey at the end of the review summary. This opens the file in Harvey’s .docx editor.
2. Select the Review tab at the top of the document.
3. Select Show justifications to see each suggested change.
4. Accept or Reject the suggested edits.
5. Select Export to save your edited document to your computer or in a Vault.

Move a Review to Word

1. In your thread, find the Word file provided by Harvey at the end of the review summary, then select Download. Your redlined document will download to your computer.
2. Open the redlined document in Word to review Harvey’s edits. Justifications are included in comments.

Run a Playbook Review in the Harvey for Word Add-In

1. Open a contract in Microsoft Word, then open the Harvey for Word add-in.
2. Select Playbooks from the bottom navigation bar.
3. Select the playbook you’d like to apply.
4. Select Run playbook to run all rules, or select specific rules then choose Run selected rules.

Before Harvey runs the review, you will be presented with a Customize playbook review menu that you can use to tailor the review. You can choose a representing party, paper type, review mode,review scope, or attach additional files and context.

Review Harvey’s Suggestions in Word

When the review is complete, Harvey flags suggested edits based on each rule. Harvey also provides recommended language **to conform the clause to your Standard position or any applicable Fallback positions. Additionally, any potential gaps that are not covered by the playbook are flagged for review.

You can review the recommendations from the default rules view or switch to the suggestions view.

Rules View

From the Rules view, Harvey’s suggestions will sort rules by the order of appearance in your document.

Choose Apply all suggestions to add all generated suggestions in a single redlined document or follow the steps below to review each rule and suggestion individually:

1. Select a rule to expand its details and jump to its first citation in your document.
2. Review the explanation of the differences between your document and the playbook rule, as well as Harvey’s recommended language to address the gap.
3. Select a suggestion under Recommended language to expand it and jump to the corresponding text in your document.
4. Adjust the edit by typing in the suggestion panel directly, or use the Revise suggestion button to generate revisions with a prompt.
5. Apply or Dismiss the suggested edits. Applied suggestions are added as redlines to the document.

Suggestions View

Suggestions view shows a condensed summary of all suggested changes.

1. Select the Suggestions view button from the top menu of the Harvey for Word add-in.
2. Select a suggestion as needed to expand details.

Refer to the steps under the Rules View to complete your review in this view.

Export a Review Summary from Word

After running a playbook review in the Harvey for Word add-in, you can export a summary of the results as a Word document or Excel spreadsheet.

1. From the playbook review, select the More options (•••) icon from the top menu.
2. Under Document type, select Word or Excel.
3. Select Export to export your summary file.