As of 13 August 2026, AI can summarise a legal contract in plain English.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the complete contract, including schedules, appendices, referenced policies and any amendments, and save a copy of the version you are considering.
   2. Remove unrelated personal information where possible, then upload the contract to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and paste the prompt above.
   3. Add one sentence describing your role, such as buyer, tenant, employee, contractor or business owner, and state the decision you are considering.
   4. Ask the chatbot to produce the summary with clause or page references and to separate the contract's wording from its explanation.
   5. Open the original contract beside the response and check every payment term, deadline, termination right, liability provision, personal guarantee and unusual restriction against the cited clause.
   6. Ask the chatbot a second time to list anything it could not find, any conflicting clauses and any statement in its summary that is an interpretation rather than a direct statement of the contract.
   7. Send the contract and the checked list of questions to a solicitor before signing if the agreement is high-value, disputed, unusual, or creates significant liability.

   Prompt

   I have uploaded a legal contract. Summarise it in plain English for a non-lawyer in the UK.
   
   First, identify the document type, the parties, the apparent start date, duration, renewal terms and governing law if stated. Then provide:
   1. A short overall summary.
   2. Each party's main obligations, separated by party.
   3. Payment terms, fees, interest and any conditions attached to payment.
   4. Termination, cancellation, notice and break rights.
   5. Restrictions, exclusivity, non-compete, confidentiality and intellectual property terms.
   6. Liability caps, indemnities, warranties, insurance and dispute-resolution provisions.
   7. Deadlines, conditions and events that could trigger a cost or loss.
   8. Clauses that are unusual, one-sided, unclear or internally inconsistent.
   9. Questions I should ask the other party or a solicitor before signing.
   
   For every point, include the relevant clause or page reference. Quote the source wording for anything important. Do not invent missing details, do not say that a clause is enforceable or unenforceable, and label anything you cannot find as not stated. Distinguish clearly between what the contract says and your plain-English explanation. This is not professional advice, so finish by stating which points need a solicitor's review, especially if I am about to sign, pay a substantial amount, give a personal guarantee, transfer intellectual property, accept liability, or face a dispute.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.