How to Create Contract Playbooks

Hi 👋,

In our previous post, we explored what playbooks are and why they’re essential for faster, more consistent legal due diligence. In this post, we’ll show you exactly how to create and implement contract playbooks so your team can start using them immediately.

What are contract playbooks?

A contract playbook is a structured set of review rules for a specific contract type: it sets out what clauses to check, the thresholds that matter, when to flag or escalate, and the standard comments to use.

In legal due diligence, contract playbooks are the fastest way to combine speed, quality, and consistency. The benefits are immediate. Every reviewer applies the same standard, meaning fewer missed issues and less noise. Reviews take less time because the focus is on decisions, not searching. Expertise is no longer trapped in one partner’s head; it is written down so juniors, non-legal reviewers, and even AI can follow it. And once a contract playbook exists, it can be reused across every similar document in every deal, scaling your approach without extra effort.

How to create contract playbooks: a step-by-step overview

Let's take a closer look at how you build contract playbooks with a step-by-step breakdown of the process.

Step 1 — Start With Experience, Not a Blank Page

The easiest way to build a contract playbook is to start with what you already do. Take a few recent DD reports and marked-up contracts and note for each flagged issue why it was flagged and what action was taken. You will quickly see patterns: recurring clauses, standard positions, common thresholds. In a shareholders’ agreement, for example, you might see that a drag-along threshold below 75% is always flagged with a standard comment on minority protection, while anything above 75% is fine unless combined with a ROFR.

This is the difference between a checklist and a playbook. A checklist says what to look at; a playbook tells you what to look for, why it matters, the threshold, and the exact follow-up action. That precision makes it useful to any reviewer, regardless of experience.

Step 2 — Structure by Contract Type and Legal Domain

Standardisation only works in context, so split your rules by contract type and write them in that type’s language. An SPA will include rules on warranties (fundamental versus business, qualifiers), closing conditions, and earn-out mechanics. A supplier agreement will focus on term, termination, liability caps, and IP assignments. Employment agreements will deal with non-compete duration and scope, and the impact of a change of control.

This also means the right experts should write the right contract playbooks. Employment lawyers draft the employment agreement playbooks; IP specialists handle IP licences; corporate lawyers own SPAs. Each contract playbook is tied to a contract type, and each contract type is tied to its legal domain. By doing this, you remove ambiguity and ensure that the rules are both technically accurate and practically usable.

Step 3 — Operationalise: Where It Lives, How to Build, and How to Use It

A contract playbook that sits in a forgotten PDF doesn’t exist. It needs to live somewhere that is easy to access, update, and track. Ideally, use a location with version control, access rights, and a changelog. You can start with something as simple as an online Word or Excel file shared with your team.

In Word/Excel, use a table with clear section headings for each clause, for example “Drag-Along”, and columns for “Standard Position”, “Fallback Positions”, “Unacceptable Deviations”, “Recommendation” and “Required Clause” yes/no column”.

The structure from the example works well because it forces you to capture the ideal position, the acceptable compromises, and the red lines that must be rejected. The recommendation field allow you to explain escalation paths or provide reviewer tips. Once set up, this file can be searched, filtered, and updated instantly, and everyone always works from the latest version.

Assign an owner to maintain the contract playbook and require partner review for material changes. Train your team with a short walkthrough using real contract excerpts, show them exactly where the contract playbook lives, and explain how to apply it. Every reviewer should know where to tick off that a check is complete, when a check is truly done, and when to escalate. If non-legal stakeholders will use the contract playbook, add a short plain-language summary for each clause explaining the business impact so they can follow along without legal detail.

Step 4 — Test Small, Improve Continuously

Once your first version is ready, test it on a single live deal. Watch closely where reviewers hesitate or disagree, and where partners override. These are your first improvement points. Contract playbooks are not static; they are living documents that evolve with every deal. After each use, update rules that caused confusion, adjust thresholds that were too strict or too loose, and add examples that make interpretation easier.

Small, frequent updates are better than infrequent overhauls. After a few cycles, you will find the contract playbook feels sharper, clearer, and more aligned with your real-world practice. The key is to treat it as an active part of your workflow, not a one-off project.

Step 5 — Bring Your Contract Playbook to Life With AI

Once your contract playbook is in place, AI becomes the natural next step. Instead of reading every page, AI applies your rules: it finds the relevant clauses, compares them against your thresholds, and marks potential legal risks. Your team reviews only the exceptions, saving time and ensuring consistent application of the rules. The benefits are immediate: less reading, faster first-pass reviews, and reduced reviewer-to-reviewer variation. You stay in control, but your attention is reserved for decisions, not searching.

Curious how top M&A lawyers see the future of AI in legal due diligence? Read their insights here.

Jurimesh streamlines both the creation and application of contract playbooks. Instead of starting from a blank page, you can generate a first draft in seconds using a prompt that specifies the contract type and key issues to check. This draft is editable and can be refined with your firm’s exact thresholds, fallback positions, and escalation rules.

Once saved, the contract playbook becomes reusable across deals and evolves as you update it with new insights. When applied, Jurimesh automatically scans all documents in your data room, locates the relevant clauses, and compares them against your playbook. Any deviations are flagged with severity ratings and suggested comments, so your team focuses only on exceptions while maintaining full control. This approach reduces setup time, speeds up reviews, and ensures your standards are applied consistently in every deal.

Have questions or curious to see how Jurimesh automates this process? We’d be happy to show you during a short demo.