Operations
Intermediate
17 min
Contracts — reading what you are about to sign
The problem
A distribution agreement arrives, eighteen pages. You skim it, note that the commercial terms look right, and sign. Eight months later you want to appoint a second distributor in the same state and discover clause 7.4 grants exclusivity for three years with no performance condition attached.
The workflow
1Upload the contract
2Extract the key clause types
3Flag one-sided terms
4Ask what is missing
5Translate to plain English
6List lawyer questions
7Get legal input
★Negotiate or sign
What you need
Type: distribution agreement. I am the manufacturer appointing a distributor.
The tool
Any assistant with a long-context capability
The prompt
Subscribers. The full prompt is part of the SMEMinds AI Playbook. See plans.
What comes back
1. KEY CLAUSES (extract) Term and renewal (cl.
Verify before you use it
Human review required. Check every line below before this leaves your screen.
- Verify clause 7.4 by reading it yourself. It is the clause that defeats your objective and everything else follows from it.
- The three lawyer questions are the deliverable. Send those, not the contract plus 'please review'.
- Do not act on any statement about enforceability — none was given, correctly. The lawyer answers that.
- Check whether the missing quality annexure exists separately. A referenced-but-absent annexure is a real gap.