Can AI check our own drafts for errors before they go out?

Yes, and this is one of the safer uses of AI in a law firm, because you are asking it to check work you already understand rather than produce work you do not. An AI assistant is good at the mechanical layer of proofing: numbers that do not add up, a date that contradicts another date, a defined term used before it is defined, a cross-reference pointing at the wrong clause. It is not good at telling you whether the document achieves what the client needs, and that judgement stays with the person who signs it.

What a mechanical check can catch

Most errors that embarrass firms are not errors of law. They are errors of transcription, arithmetic and version control. Those are exactly the things a careful reader catches and a tired reader misses at six o'clock.

The checks worth asking for include:

• Internal consistency of figures. Does the schedule total match the figure in the body? Does the interest calculation match the rate stated? Does the sum claimed in the particulars match the sum in the letter before action attached to it?
• Dates that contradict each other. A document that says the agreement was signed in one month and then refers to performance beginning before that date is telling you something is wrong.
• Cross-references. Clause 12.3 referring to clause 8 when the numbering shifted after an amendment is a common and quiet mistake.
• Defined terms. Terms defined but never used, used but never defined, or defined twice with different wording.
• Names and parties. A party named one way on the front page and another way in the body, or a counterparty from a previous version of the precedent left in.
• Blanks and placeholders. Square brackets, "TBC", highlighted text and drafting notes that were meant to come out.
• Gaps against a list you supply. If you tell it the six points the letter must cover, it can tell you which of the six it cannot find.

None of this is glamorous. All of it is the sort of thing that costs a firm an apology letter, a write-off or a notification to insurers.

What it cannot catch

Be clear with yourself and with your staff about the limits.

It cannot tell you that the clause is unwise, that the remedy is wrong, that the wrong test has been applied, or that a point the client mentioned in a phone call in March has been left out entirely because it never made it onto the file. A check against the document is only ever a check against the document.

It cannot tell you that the precedent you started from was out of date. If the base document was wrong, an internally consistent version of it is still wrong.

It will not read tone the way a client will. A letter can be accurate, consistent and still the wrong letter to send to a distressed client or an opponent you will be dealing with for another two years.

And it cannot substitute for reading your own work. If a fee earner sends a draft off for checking without having read it properly, the firm has not added a check, it has swapped one.

How to ask for a check that is actually useful

Vague instructions produce vague comments. "Review this" invites general remarks about clarity that waste your time.

Ask narrow questions, one layer at a time:

1. State what the document is and what it has to do. A deed of variation, a letter of claim, a statement of case, a report to a lender. The purpose shapes what counts as an error.
2. Ask for one category at a time. Figures first. Then dates. Then cross-references and defined terms. A single sweeping request produces a list that mixes trivia with the one thing that mattered.
3. Ask it to point at the page. A comment you cannot locate in the document is a comment you cannot act on.
4. Ask what it could not check. If a schedule is an image, or an annexure was not supplied, you need to know that rather than assume it was covered.
5. Ask it to flag what is missing rather than fill it in. You want the gap identified, not a plausible sentence written over it.

Then deal with each comment yourself. Accepting a suggested correction without checking it against the source is how a small error becomes a confident one.

Supervision and the file

Treat an AI check as you would treat a check by a colleague: useful, welcome, and not a transfer of responsibility. The person who signs the document owns every word in it, including the words a machine suggested.

For supervisors, this is a reasonable thing to build into a firm's habits. Ask junior fee earners to run the mechanical checks before the draft reaches you, so that your review is spent on judgement rather than on catching a missing zero. Make clear that a clean report is not evidence that the draft is good.

Keep the file tidy. A short note that a draft was checked, what was checked and what was changed is enough. You do not need a transcript of every exchange, but you should be able to explain later how the document that went out was produced.

Where Alesis fits

Alesis reads documents page by page, so when it flags a figure, a date or a missing point, the citation points at the page it came from, and any page it could not read is flagged rather than skipped. It counts key dates and figures with the working shown, each step carrying the rule that allows it, and it says the firm's diary system still governs. When it cannot find support for a point, it says what is missing instead of guessing. It prepares drafts for a qualified person to review and sign off; it does not file, serve or email anything.