# Read this before you sign it Use AI to understand a lease, a contract, or a policy, and know exactly where it will let you down. **Time:** 20 minutes **What you'll have when you're done:** A plain-language map of what the document obligates you to, a list of what it conspicuously doesn't say, and a short list of questions worth asking before you sign. **Before you start:** - Any AI chat tool. A free tier is enough. If you're doing this on a work account, check your employer's policy first - The document, as text you can paste. A photo or scan will need converting first - Ten minutes to read what comes back properly ---You've been handed something long, written by someone else's lawyer, and you're expected to agree to it. Most people skim it, sign it, and hope. This won't make you a lawyer. What it will do is get you from "I haven't read it" to "I've read it and here are my three questions," which is a much better place to be standing. Two things to be clear about before you start. **This is not legal advice, and neither is what comes back.** For anything with real money or real consequences attached, this is preparation for a conversation with a lawyer, not a replacement for one. What you're buying is a better conversation. **Take out anything identifying first.** More on this below, and don't skip it. --- ## Before you start: what to remove Personal documents carry more sensitive data than work ones, not less. A lease has your address. A settlement letter has your bank details. An insurance document has your health history. Before you paste anything, take out: - Your name, address, phone number, email - Account numbers, policy numbers, case numbers - Dates of birth, government ID numbers - Bank details, card numbers - Anything about your health Replace each with a placeholder: `[MY NAME]`, `[ADDRESS]`, `[ACCOUNT]`. The document still makes sense with placeholders in it. The obligations don't depend on your name. If a clause becomes unreadable without a real detail, that clause is one to read yourself. Leave the other party's name in if it's a company. Take it out if it's a person. The clauses are the thing you're analyzing. The identifying details aren't. --- ## Task 1: what does this actually obligate me to? **About five minutes.** Paste the document. Then: ``` This is a [lease / service contract / policy]. I'm considering signing it. List every obligation it places on me. One line each, in plain language. Then list every obligation it places on the other party, the same way. Only include what the document actually says. If something is implied but not stated, say so and mark it as implied. Don't tell me what's typical or what usually happens. ``` That last paragraph matters more than the rest. Without it you'll get a mix of what the document says and what documents like it generally say, presented in the same confident tone, with no way to tell which is which. What will happen: two lists. The obligations on you will be longer. That's normal and isn't itself a red flag. The party who wrote it wrote it for themselves. **What you've learned:** the shape of the deal, in language you can hold in your head. You can now read the actual document and know what you're looking for, which is a different experience from reading it cold. --- ## Task 2: what isn't in here? **About five minutes.** This is the one that earns the twenty minutes. ``` Same document. Now tell me what it does not address. What situations could plausibly come up under an agreement like this that this document says nothing about? List them as open questions, not as problems. Be specific to what I pasted. Don't give me a general checklist. ``` Absences are hard to notice by reading. You can only see what's on the page, and the thing that will cause you grief in eighteen months is usually the thing nobody wrote down. What will happen: a list of gaps. Some won't matter. Two or three will make you think. **A caution specific to this task.** This is the point where it's most likely to invent, because it's being asked about things that aren't in the text, which is the right column of the strong/weak table. Treat every item as a question to check, never as a finding. If it tells you the document is silent on something, search the document for that term before you believe it. **What you've learned:** the questions you didn't know to ask. That's the deliverable, not the list itself. --- ## Task 3: what's unusual here? **About ten minutes.** Now the comparison. ``` Which clauses in this document would you describe as unusual, one-sided, or worth pushing back on, compared to a standard agreement of this kind? For each one: quote the clause, say what it does in plain language, and say what a more balanced version would look like. If a clause is strict but standard, say that too. I want to know what's normal as well as what's harsh. ``` The last line is what keeps this useful. Ask only for red flags and you'll get red flags, because it's accommodating and you asked. Asking it to distinguish harsh-but-normal from genuinely unusual gets you something you can act on. What will happen: three to six clauses, some of which are fine. The ones that aren't fine become your questions. **What you've learned:** where your leverage is, if you have any. Sometimes the answer is that everything is standard and you sign it. That's still worth knowing, and it took twenty minutes. --- ## When it breaks **It will state confidently that a clause says something it doesn't.** Every specific claim about the text should be checked against the text. Search for the phrase. This takes seconds and catches the failure that matters most. **It's weakest on jurisdiction.** Tenancy law, consumer protection, and employment rules vary enormously by country and by state, and it will apply the wrong ones without telling you. Treat anything about your legal rights as unverified, always. **It's worst on anything recent.** Consumer law changes. A rule that took effect this year may not register at all. If a clause turns on something recent, that's a question for a person. **It will soften.** Ask "is this a reasonable contract?" and you'll mostly get reassurance. That's why task 3 asks what's unusual rather than whether it's fine. **Long documents drift.** Past thirty or forty pages, earlier sections start getting dropped from the analysis. Split it and do the sections separately. --- ## What this doesn't tell you It doesn't tell you whether to sign. It tells you what you'd be signing, which is the part most people skip. It also can't tell you what's enforceable. A clause can be written into a contract and mean nothing in your jurisdiction, and the reverse. That's a question for someone who knows your local law. And it can't tell you what the other party will actually do. Contracts describe the bad case. Most of the time you never get there. If the money involved is more than a few months of your income, this is preparation for a lawyer, not a substitute. Twenty minutes here makes that lawyer's hour go further.