Best Microsoft Word Add-Ins for Lawyers (including AI tools)

Microsoft Word is essentially a lawyer’s second home – from drafting contracts to fine-tuning briefs, we practically live in Word. But even our trusty Word could use a boost. That’s where add-ins come in, supercharging Word with extra features tailored for legal work. Below we’ve rounded up the 5 best Word add-ins for lawyers, including some cutting-edge AI helpers. We’ll start with Gavel Exec, our top overall pick for its AI contract drafting magic, then explore other handy tools that tackle legal writing, proofreading, citations, and document automation.

1. Gavel Exec: AI Drafting & Redlining Assistant (Best for Contract Analysis)

Gavel Exec is like having a brilliant virtual associate right inside Word. Built for transactional attorneys, this AI legal assistant helps you draft, redline, and negotiate contracts without ever leaving Microsoft Word. Gavel Exec’s flexible chat interface means you can literally converse with Word: ask it to revise a clause, summarize a section, or apply your playbook standards, and watch the AI get to work. It’s trained on legal documents, so it redlines like a seasoned lawyer, catching unfavorable terms and suggesting language more in line with market standards. No wonder we’ve crowned it the best overall add-in for lawyers looking to turbocharge contract review. Here’s what makes Gavel Exec stand out:

• AI-Assisted Redlining: Instantly mark up contracts with AI-suggested edits based on typical market standards. It flags deviations and unacceptable clauses so you can protect your client’s interests faster.
• Playbooks & Clause Benchmarking: You can feed in your firm’s negotiation playbook (or use Gavel’s pre-built ones for common docs like NDAs, leases, MSAs) and the AI will flag anything outside those guidelines. It even benchmarks clauses against market norms, so you know if that indemnity clause is way off-base.
• Chat-Based Drafting: Gavel Exec lets you chat with your document. Need to tighten up a provision or generate a quick summary of a contract? Just ask. The AI will rewrite clauses per your instructions and even produce plain-English summaries for clients. It’s like talking to an associate who never sleeps (and never bills overtime).

Why lawyers love it: Gavel Exec dramatically cuts down the grunt work of contract review. Think of hours saved on redlines and first drafts. You maintain control (it follows your rules and you decide which changes to keep), but the AI handles the heavy lifting of comparing documents, inserting standard clauses, and ensuring nothing slips through the cracks. It’s also secure and privacy-minded, so your confidential deal documents stay safe (Gavel doesn’t train on your data). After a generous free trial (15 free AI runs - try them here), power-users can subscribe for unlimited use. For transactional lawyers, Gavel Exec is a game-changer that helps close deals faster without breaking a sweat.

2. PerfectIt (with American Legal Style): Proofreading Perfection for Legal Docs

Every lawyer knows the devil is in the details – a misplaced comma or wrong citation format can undermine an otherwise stellar brief. PerfectIt is the trusty proofreading sidekick that makes sure your documents are polished and consistent. It’s an add-in that scans your Word document to catch errors and enforce style rules you might miss at 2 AM. Even better, there’s a legal-specific toolkit (the American Legal Style) that checks for all those nitpicky Bluebook and court formatting issues automatically.

• Catches Typos & Consistency Issues: PerfectIt will scour your document for things like inconsistent capitalization, abbreviations, or numbering. It flags when you accidentally used “Section” in one spot and “Sec.” elsewhere, or if a defined term (like “Agreement”) isn’t consistently capitalized. No more manually hunting down stray errors!
• Bluebook & Legal Style Checks: Using the Legal Style module, PerfectIt checks your writing against Bluebook citation formatting rules and even the Chicago Manual of Style. It spots common citation errors – extra spaces, missing periods, wrong abbreviations – and fixes them in a snap. It’s like having a meticulous law review editor proofread for you.
• Customizable to Your Firm’s Preferences: Have a house style or judge’s pet peeves to appease? PerfectIt lets you customize its rules. You can add your own exclusions or preferences, ensuring the final doc meets your standards (and nobody has to argue over the Oxford comma again).

Why lawyers love it: PerfectIt saves you from embarrassing mistakes and tedious final sweeps through a brief. It’s especially beloved by appellate lawyers, paralegals, and anyone who lives in footnotes and citations. Instead of manually combing through a 50-page brief for punctuation consistency, PerfectIt does it in seconds – speeding up legal proofreading while improving accuracy. It’s a small investment that can make a big difference in the quality of your work product (and your sanity during crunch time).

3. WordRake: Trim Legalese and Strengthen Your Writing

If you’ve ever wished for an editor who could look over your shoulder and chop out all the unnecessary fluff in your writing, WordRake is the add-in for you. WordRake’s motto could be “make it shorter and clearer.” It edits your document for conciseness and clarity, almost like a well-meaning senior partner who isn’t shy about using a red pen. This tool will highlight verbose legalese and suggest more straightforward wording, helping you sound sharp and to the point.

• Plain Language Edits: Legal writing has a bad habit of being wordy. WordRake identifies needless verbiage and complex phrasing, then suggests simpler alternatives. It nudges you from “in the event that” to “if”, and from “pursuant to” to “under”. The result? Cleaner, more digestible sentences.
• Cuts the Clutter: Extra adjectives, double negatives, passive voice – WordRake will rake them all out (pun intended). It’s great at deleting redundant words and tightening up long-winded passages. Your document loses weight (unnecessary words) without losing substance.
• Fast, Automated Proofreading: With one click, WordRake zooms through your Word file and produces inline edits. You then review the suggestions and accept or reject each. It’s like a rapid-fire proofreader that speeds up your editing process, enforcing clarity and modern style.

Why lawyers love it: WordRake helps you write like a human, not a legalese-generating robot. In a profession where clear communication can win cases and clients, this add-in is a godsend. It enforces plain language principles that judges and clients appreciate, all while saving you time doing line-by-line edits. Many attorneys use WordRake as a final step before filing or sending out a document – it’s amazing how many little improvements it can find. The tone of your writing will stay professional, but with the legal fluff trimmed away. Think of WordRake as the personal trainer for your writing: it makes your prose lean, active, and powerful.

4. Clearbrief: AI Tool for Evidence and Citation Superpowers

Litigators, meet your new weapon: Clearbrief. This AI add-in tackles one of the most tedious parts of brief-writing – making sure every factual statement is backed up by evidence and every citation is spot on. Clearbrief works within Word to line up your facts with the record and ensure your citations and quotes are flawless. It has won awards for good reason: it can find where each fact came from, help you build a Table of Authorities, and even suggest relevant precedent – all without leaving your document.

• Automatic Fact-Checking: Clearbrief can take a factual assertion in your brief and find the exact spot in your source documents (exhibits, transcripts, etc.) that supports it. No more scrambling through PDFs to locate that one quote – Clearbrief highlights the line in the source for you. This line-referencing magic ensures your brief’s factual citations are accurate and you can instantly double-check support for every statement.
• Cite-Checking and Table of Authorities: This tool also checks your case citations for format and validity. It flags citation errors and even pulls in the proper Bluebook format. As a bonus, Clearbrief can build your Table of Authorities automatically, gathering every case you cited, correctly italicizing and punctuating it, and organizing the TOA – a huge time saver for appellate filings!
• AI-Powered Suggestions: Under the hood, Clearbrief uses AI to understand your writing and can suggest additional authority or identify weaknesses. For example, if you draft a brief section, Clearbrief might nudge you with: “Hey, have you considered citing Smith v. Jones here?” It’s like an associate who’s great at research and never misses a citation.

Why lawyers love it: Clearbrief gives litigators superhuman efficiency. It’s incredibly reassuring to know that every factual assertion in your brief is backed up by the record and to have your citations impeccably formatted. By handling the drudge work of cite-checking and record pinpointing, Clearbrief frees you to focus on crafting persuasive arguments (and maybe catch a breath before that filing deadline). If you want to impress the court with both substance and scrupulous accuracy – and do it in less time – Clearbrief is a must-try tool for Word.

5. Gavel Workflows: Rules-Based Document Automation for Legal Practices

If you’re still copying and pasting client data into templates, there’s a better way. Gavel Workflows is a no-code automation platform built specifically for lawyers who want to turn their routine documents into smart, scalable systems. Unlike Gavel Exec (the AI drafting add-in), Gavel Workflows lets you build custom workflows that collect information and automatically generate full sets of legal documents, all from a single intake.

• No-Code Automation for Any Practice Area: Whether you’re creating estate plans, divorce packets, business formations, or demand letters, Gavel lets you build workflows that mirror your firm’s logic and processes. You control the questions, rules, and document generation—no coding required.
• Client-Facing Forms and Data Collection: Gavel Workflows includes beautifully designed client intake forms that you can embed on your site, send via link, or even white-label under your own brand. Clients enter their information once, and the platform automatically generates the correct documents based on your logic.
• Document Sets, Not Just One-offs: Gavel doesn’t just fill in a few fields; it can generate multiple related documents from one workflow (e.g., entire set of estate planning documents or deal documents). It handles complex logic, conditional clauses, and defined terms so the output is ready to file or send.
• Built for Legal Teams and Legal Products: Whether you’re streamlining internal work or building a public-facing legal product, Gavel gives you the infrastructure to do both. Some lawyers even monetize their workflows by offering them as fixed-fee legal products to consumers or businesses.

Why lawyers love it: Gavel Workflows eliminates repetitive drafting tasks and enables scalable legal services, all while reducing errors and freeing up time for higher-value work. It’s especially powerful for firms that handle high-volume, rules-driven work and want to systematize their practice without sacrificing quality. If you’ve ever thought, “There has to be a better way to draft this,” Gavel Workflows is probably it.

Microsoft Word will probably always be a lawyer’s workhorse, but these add-ins turn it into a thoroughbred. Whether it’s AI-powered contract review with Gavel Exec, catching sneaky mistakes with PerfectIt, refining your prose with WordRake, supercharging your litigation prep with Clearbrief, or rules-based document automation with Gavel's Gavel Workflows– there’s a tool here for every type of lawyer. By adopting a few of these Word add-ins, you can draft and review legal documents more efficiently (and maybe even have a bit more free time or peace of mind). Give them a try and watch your productivity soar. Who knew Microsoft Word could be this much better?

Happy drafting! Try Gavel Exec on your free trial here.

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