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Contract Debugger is the QA pass before a contract goes out. It reads the document end-to-end looking for the kinds of problems that are easy to miss on a normal review - terms defined but never used, terms used but never defined, cross-references that point to the wrong section, conflicting provisions, math that does not add up.
Legal Tools workspace with the Contract Review form open: contract type, your side, playbook, markup mode, negotiation round, and upload

Contract Review and debugging in the Legal Tools hub

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When To Use It

  • Final review before sending a draft out
  • After heavy revisions on a contract that has gone through multiple turns
  • Before signing - one last check that nothing was missed
  • Diligence on a contract drafted by counterparty’s counsel
  • Cleaning up a template that has drifted over many versions

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What It Catches

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How It Works

1

Upload the contract

Drop in a draft or pick one already in your matter.
2

Open Contract Debugger

Launch the tool from the tools menu.
3

Let the tool run two passes

A structural pass walks definitions, cross-references, and numbering. A semantic pass looks for conflicts, ambiguity, and math errors.
4

Review issues by severity

Critical and High issues should be fixed before send-out. Medium and Low are clean-up items.

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Ready-to-run prompt

Contract Debugger - find every structural and semantic defect in a draft before send-out.

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Reading the Output

Each issue includes:
  • The issue type (e.g., “Undefined term”)
  • The location in the document (section, page, line)
  • A quote of the problematic text
  • A suggested fix
  • A severity rating (Critical, High, Medium, Low)

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Severity Levels

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Suggested Fixes

For each issue, the tool drafts a specific fix:
  • For undefined terms - a proposed definition or a suggested replacement
  • For broken cross-references - the section the reference probably meant to point to
  • For conflicts - a recommendation on which provision should control and language to add to resolve
Apply the fix as a markup, export the corrections as a redline, or drop them into your draft manually.

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Clause Relationship Analysis

Beyond inconsistencies, the tool maps how clauses relate to each other:
  • Which provisions reference which others
  • Where dependencies exist (e.g., termination rights tied to specific breach definitions)
  • Clauses that are functionally redundant
  • Provisions that may be overridden by the integration clause but shouldn’t be
This view helps when you are restructuring a contract or evaluating the impact of changing one clause.

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Tips

Run at both natural checkpoints. Once before send-out, once before signature. Each pass catches issues introduced in the round of revisions just before it.
Pair with Contract Review. Debugger catches structural defects; Contract Review catches commercial issues. Together they cover both the form and the substance.
Especially useful on inherited templates. A template that has drifted across many drafts often has defined terms with multiple definitions, cross-references that point to deleted sections, and integration clauses that quietly nullify what other clauses appear to grant. Run Debugger before you commit to a template as your firm’s standard.

Contract Review

Substantive clause-level review against your playbook.

Compare Documents

Diff two versions of a contract to see exactly what changed.

Document Analyst

Ask ad-hoc questions about a document.

Redline Analysis

After Debugger cleans the draft, analyze the counterparty’s tracked changes.