Bulk Legal Document Review to Excel Matrix
Turn dozens or hundreds of contracts, NDAs, or leases into a single sourced Excel matrix — one row per document, one column per review question, color-coded risk flags.
Due diligence just landed 150 vendor contracts on your desk with a two-week deadline. Reading each one and manually tracking findings in a spreadsheet takes days you don't have, and missing one unfavorable clause could cost real money after close.
Who it's for: M&A lawyers doing due diligence, in-house counsel auditing a contract portfolio, paralegals supporting bulk document review, compliance teams sweeping vendor agreements, procurement teams comparing terms across many supplier contracts
Example
"Review these 40 NDAs and flag anything unusual" → A structured Excel workbook: one row per NDA, columns for term, confidentiality survival period, non-compete/non-solicit presence, and an overall risk flag — every cell sourced back to its clause, with a Summary sheet tallying how many came back Red, Yellow, or Green
CLAUDE.md Template
New here? 3-minute setup guide → | Already set up? Copy the template below.
npx ccplaybooks add bulk-legal-document-review# Bulk Legal Document Review to Excel Matrix
## Your Role
You transform collections of legal documents — contracts, NDAs, leases, loan agreements, share purchase agreements — into a structured Excel matrix. Each document becomes a row; each review question becomes a column; every cell carries an extracted answer plus a citation back to its source.
**This supports legal work; it does not replace legal judgment.** All extracted data and risk classifications must be reviewed by a qualified lawyer before anyone relies on them.
**Citation discipline applies to risk classification too.** If any column cites a statute or regulation to justify a Red/Yellow/Green call, that citation needs to come from a verified source — a research tool, or a document the user supplied — not from memory. If you can't verify it, say so in the sheet rather than presenting an unverified classification as settled.
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What This Does
Converts a pile of legal documents into a single structured spreadsheet you can actually sort, filter, and compare — instead of forty open PDFs and a notepad. Each document becomes a row, each review question becomes a column, and every cell carries both the extracted answer and a citation back to the exact clause it came from.
Quick Start
Step 1: Create a Project Folder
mkdir bulk-legal-review && cd bulk-legal-review
Step 2: Download the Template
Click Download above, then:
mv ~/Downloads/CLAUDE.md ./
Step 3: Run a Review
claude
Then ask: "Review these contracts and extract [governing law, liability cap, termination terms, etc.]" — pointing at a folder of documents.
What You Get
A multi-sheet Excel workbook:
| Sheet | Contents |
|---|---|
| Summary | Review name, document count, risk distribution, color legend |
| Review Matrix | The main grid — documents as rows, extraction questions as columns, risk cells color-coded Green/Yellow/Red |
| Sources | Clause/page reference for every extracted value |
| Extraction Parameters | The list of columns and the exact question each one answers |
Pre-Built Column Sets
The template ships ready-to-use extraction columns for five common document types — commercial/master service agreements, NDAs, leases, loan agreements, and share/asset purchase agreements — each with 10–16 fields tuned to what actually matters for that document type. All are fully customizable.
Tips & Best Practices
- Never leave a cell blank. "Not addressed" or "Silent" is a finding — the absence of a liquidated damages clause is information, not a gap in the work.
- Attach a source to every value. A risk flag without a clause reference isn't verifiable and won't survive a lawyer's spot-check.
- Normalize terminology across rows. If one contract says "12 months" and another says "1 year" for the same concept, write them the same way — otherwise the matrix can't actually be compared or sorted.
- Batch large sets. For 10+ documents, process in batches and verify consistency after each one. For 50+, prioritize a subset (e.g. highest contract value first) rather than processing everything in one uneven pass.
- Spot-check before delivering. Re-read 2–3 documents against their extracted rows to catch systematic extraction errors before they propagate across the whole matrix.
Limitations
- Extraction quality depends on document quality — scanned PDFs without clean OCR will produce weaker results than searchable text
- Risk classifications (Green/Yellow/Red) are only as good as the negotiation playbook or market standard they're measured against — without one, the workbook should flag that it's using general market norms rather than your organization's actual position
- This produces a working analytical document for legal review, not a substitute for it — every extraction and risk flag needs a qualified lawyer's sign-off before anyone relies on it