Contract Review with Claude: A Prompt Framework That Actually Works

"Review this contract" is one of the least useful prompts you can give Claude — not because it can't help, but because the request is too vague to produce something you can act on. A contract review is really four or five distinct questions, and asking them separately produces dramatically better results than asking one big vague one.

Break the review into passes

Here's the framework I use, run as separate prompts against the same contract, one pass at a time.

Pass 1 — Structural read

Read this contract and list its sections in order. For each section, give a one-line plain-English summary of what it does. Flag any section that's unusually short for what it covers, or any standard section (e.g. limitation of liability, indemnification, termination) that appears to be missing entirely.

Contract:
[paste contract]

Pass 2 — Risk allocation

For the same contract, identify every clause that allocates risk, cost, or liability between the parties (indemnification, limitation of liability, insurance requirements, force majeure, termination for convenience). For each, state in one sentence which party it favors and why.

Contract:
[paste contract]

Pass 3 — Plain-English red flags

Acting as counsel for [my client's role, e.g. "the vendor"], list the five clauses in this contract most likely to cause a problem for my client specifically, ranked by severity. For each, suggest one alternative phrasing that would be more balanced.

Contract:
[paste contract]

Pass 4 — Defined terms consistency check

List every defined term in this contract (usually capitalized) along with its definition. Then flag any term that's used in the body of the contract but never defined, and any term that's defined but never actually used.

Why four passes beat one

Each pass asks Claude to do one specific kind of thinking — structural, risk-focused, advocacy-focused, mechanical — instead of blending all four into one response where the important flags get buried among general observations. It takes four prompts instead of one, but each takes seconds to run, and the output is something you can actually act on line by line rather than a summary paragraph you have to re-derive the specifics from.

A contract review isn't one task wearing a trench coat. It's four different questions. Ask them separately.