Note: This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change. 

Important 

You need to be part of the Frontier program to get early access to Legal Agent for Word. Frontier connects you directly with Microsoft’s latest AI innovations. Frontier previews are subject to the existing preview terms of your customer agreements. As these features are still in development, their availability and capabilities may change over time. 

If the Legal Agent isn’t available in Copilot for Word, ensure that the admin account is also enrolled in Frontier (Copilot -> Settings -> Frontier). 

This is a preview feature. Preview features may have restricted functionality. These features are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback. 

For more information, go to our Microsoft Product Terms. 

Legal Agent is available in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word desktop. Legal professionals can use the agent to summarize, understand, redline and review legal documents. 

Prerequisites 

The legal agent currently works on desktop versions of Word for US M365 Copilot customers. 

Before you begin, make sure you have: 

Microsoft 365 Copilot access: An active Microsoft 365 Copilot license assigned to your account and enrollment in the Frontier program.

Anthropic enabled in tenant: Legal Agent uses Anthropic models as a subprocessor. Details about the integration can be found at Anthropic as a subprocessor for Microsoft Online Services. 

Open the Legal Agent

You can access the Legal Agent from Copilot in Word. You'll need to restart Word to have the Legal Agent appear in Copilot in Word for the first time.

  1. Open Copilot in Word.

  2. Within the chat input, click the + button.

  3. A dropdown menu will appear.

  4. Click Legal Agent (Frontier).

  5. Legal Agent will open in a new task pane in Word. You're now ready to use the Legal Agent!

Interrogate your document 

You can use the chat tool to summarize and interrogate your open document in Word. The legal agent can reply to your query with an answer specifically tailored toward legal professionals. 

Type your query into the chat input.  

  1. Send your message by pressing Send.

  2. View the agent’s answer. You can see the agent’s answer stream back to you after a few seconds. The agent will give you periodic updates on its progress while it’s working.

  3. Check the agent’s work. The agent will give numbered citations within its answer. The citations are clickable; clicking them highlights the areas of the document the agent referenced when generating its answer.

The agent can answer queries about the whole document, or only about sections you’ve highlighted. You can highlight a specific area of the document and ask the agent about it. It will pay particular attention to that area of the document when giving an answer.

Tip: Avoid vague instructions. The agent works best when you're specific in what you’re asking.  Instead of asking What are the risks? ask What are the risks to the seller related to service delivery? 

Edit your document 

You can also use the chat tool to have the agent edit your document. The agent will generate redlines as tracked changes to your document. The redlines the agent generates are tuned to resemble those of a legal professional. 

  1. Type your instruction into the chat input.

  2. Send your message by pressing Send.

  3. The agent will work out on whether to give an answer or to generate edits.

  4. Review the agent’s suggested edit. The agent will propose redlines to your document as tracked changes. The agent might suggest multiple changes. It may also suggest a comment you can insert into the document explaining the changes.

  5. Accept or dismiss the changes. To insert the agent's suggested changes into the document, click the Accept button. To also include its commentary, click the Accept with Comment button. The changes will be inserted into the document as tracked changes.

Tip: Within the chat, the agent is best at addressing one issue at a time. Instead of saying Remediate all of the risks for the buyer, say Update the limitation of liability provision to exclude consequential damages for the buyer. 

Review your contract using a playbook

Note: This works separately to the chat. Trying a full document review using the chat will not yield the best results.

You can use the Review with Playbook feature to have the agent complete a full top-to-bottom document review based on your playbook. The agent can ingest your playbook, break it down into a series of instructions, and then review your contract using those instructions. 

The first step is to generate a skill. 

Generate a skill 

The legal agent’s Review with Playbook feature relies on a concept called skills. Skills are reusable sets of instructions that guide AI agents through complex, multistep tasks.  

The legal agent does not actually use your playbook to review a contract. Instead, it uses a skill that is based on your playbook. Think of a skill as a version of your playbook that was specifically rewritten to be useful for an AI agent, as opposed to a human. 

In order to review your document using your playbook, you need to convert it into a skill. The legal agent can do this for you. 

  1. Enter the Review with Playbook flow. On the main screen, click the Have a Playbook? button. If you're on the chat screen, click Tools in the chat input and select Review with Playbook.

  2. Add your playbook document. You can add it from your computer or from SharePoint. This must be a .docx file.

  3. The legal agent will analyze your playbook and convert it into a skill. The agent will break your playbook down into topics. Within each topic, any rules or example clauses from your playbook will be added.

  4. Review the skill. When the agent is done generating your skill, review the rules in each topic to make sure they’ve been properly extracted from your playbook. Make any adjustments to the rules or example clause text. You can add or remove topics from a skill.

When satisfied, move onto the document review flow. The agent will save the skill, including any changes you’ve made to it, for later. 

Tip: You only need to do this once for each playbook. After the first time you can skip this step. Generated skills are automatically stored for later and reusable.

Review your contract 

Once you have a skill generated, you’re ready to start the contract review. The agent will conduct a full top-to-bottom contract review using your previously generated skill. Don’t have a skill for your playbook? Follow the instructions in the section above. 

  1. Click Start Review.

  2. The agent will start reviewing the document against each topic in your skill, using the rules and example clauses to guide its review.

  3. After a few moments, the agent’s report will start to stream into view, one topic at a time. Pay attention to the markings for each topic:

  4. Gray topics are not relevant to the document.

  5. Green topics mean the document complies with the rules in the skill.

  6. Light red topics mean the document requires at least one change to be compliance with the rules in the skill.

  7. Dark red topics mean the entire clauses need to be added or removed to be compliance with the rules in the skill.

  8. Click into each topic and see the full agent’s analysis. You can see the list of rules from the skill the agent used in its analysis.

  9. If a document requires changes to be compliant with the skill’s rules, the agent will suggest an edit.

  10. Review the agent’s suggested edit. The agent will propose redlines to your document as tracked changes. The agent might suggest multiple changes.

  11. Accept or dismiss the changes. To insert the agent's suggested changes into the document, click the Accept button. To also include its commentary, click the Accept with Comment button. The changes will be inserted into the document as tracked changes.

  12. Go through each topic in the report to action the agent’s suggestions.

You can click the Accept All button to automatically insert all of the agent’s suggested edits. 

Note: You can currently only conduct document reviews from playbooks. You can’t yet review documents from templates or other documents. 

Important: The Legal Agent does not provide legal advice or professional determinations, and is not a substitute for the judgment of a qualified legal professional. AI‑generated content may be inaccurate. Users are solely responsible for reviewing, verifying, and deciding whether to rely on any output before taking action.

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