A long agreement can allocate work to several named parties, use defined terms instead of company names and make an action depend on a notice or another event. A simple extraction of every sentence containing shall can miss those relationships or create tasks that are not yet active.
This article provides a proposed candidate-obligation register for lawyer review. The example clauses are fictional. The assistant organises wording and dependencies; the lawyer determines interpretation, applicability and the approved operational treatment before any task is assigned or executed.
Confirm the source set and party definitions
Use the agreement version and related sources selected by the responsible professional. Record amendments and schedules that may affect the relevant clauses. Do not assume the newest uploaded document is authoritative or merge different versions into one implied agreement.
Extract the party definitions and preserve their references. Contractor, Company and Customer may be defined terms with specific meanings. A person's name in a signature block should not automatically replace a defined party in the register. The reviewer decides the relevant identity and role.
OpenAI's file-search guide describes retrieval from uploaded files with citations. It can help find obligation-like passages and definitions, but does not guarantee complete coverage or establish which source governs. Maintain an approved inventory and record inaccessible cross-references. Source: OpenAI file search
Keep action, trigger and condition together
A candidate entry needs more than an action verb. Record the named party, the relevant action, its object, trigger, condition and any stated period or date. If part of that relationship is missing, preserve the gap rather than supplying a plausible owner or trigger.
Distinguish a right to request something from an immediate requirement to do it. Likewise, a statement describing current circumstances is not automatically an ongoing obligation. Label the extraction category as a candidate for professional review, not a final legal finding.
Do not activate conditional work until the approved trigger evidence exists. A clause tied to a written notice needs the professional's interpretation and the organisation's verified event record. A message that resembles a notice is not sufficient authority for the assistant to create a task automatically.
Clause-linked obligation register
Use this complete hypothetical register for TEST-AGREEMENT-A. All clause wording is invented for the example, and every legal interpretation remains subject to lawyer review.
| Candidate and source | Original clause substance | Named party, action and trigger | Review disposition |
|---|---|---|---|
| O01, clause 4 | Contractor shall provide a monthly service report after the defined reporting period | Defined Contractor; provide report; reporting-period trigger requires definition check | Candidate recurring obligation; lawyer approves meaning before task design |
| O02, clause 6 | Company may request additional information in writing | Defined Company; right to request, not an immediate task by this extraction | Keep separate from operational obligations pending review |
| O03, clause 7 | Both parties shall nominate a contact for notices | Both defined parties; nomination action; timing not explicit in fixture | Candidate joint requirement; reviewer confirms allocation and action needed |
| O04, clause 9 | If notified of the specified issue, Contractor shall provide the stated response | Contractor; conditional response; notice and issue definitions unresolved | Held candidate; no active task until interpretation and trigger evidence approved |
| O05, schedule 2 | A review is expected following the stated milestone | Actor and mandatory meaning unclear | Ambiguous candidate; identify professional question rather than assign owner |
| O06, clause 11 | Required action refers to a missing annexure | Party and action partly available; dependency source absent | Hold interpretation and request authorised source |
The register stores candidate reference, agreement and source version, exact text or faithful excerpt, clause location, defined party and definition reference, action, object, trigger, conditions, period or date wording, cross-references, uncertainty, lawyer decision and operational disposition. Keep original wording alongside the extraction so the reviewer can inspect what was simplified.
Lawyer review record: confirm applicable sources, interpret the candidate, resolve party and trigger questions, distinguish rights or statements where relevant, and approve any operational description. Record accepted, corrected, held or excluded status with the reviewed version and rationale. Do not use the assistant's confidence as a substitute for that decision.
Task handoff: for an approved operational item, supply the professional-approved action, responsible business owner, verified trigger evidence, approved schedule where needed and source reference. Assignment, reminder creation and external communication use separate authorised application steps. A candidate register row is not an executed task.
Acceptance fixtures: a clear named party; a defined-term alias; a conditional action; a right rather than an immediate duty; a missing cross-reference; duplicate clauses; and conflicting amendment wording. Expected results preserve the relationships and uncertainty, with no unreviewed task activation.
The register is ready when every extracted candidate is traceable and its review question is explicit. It becomes an approved operational register only after the responsible professional supplies the necessary determinations and the business owner accepts the handoff.
Use a schema to make omissions visible
OpenAI's Structured Outputs guide supports constrained response formats and refusal handling. A schema can require party, action, trigger, source and uncertainty fields. It does not prove legal meaning, exhaustive extraction or the accuracy of a party assignment. Source: OpenAI structured outputs
Leave unknown fields unresolved rather than forcing a value. A required schema field can hold an explicit unknown state with the source gap. If a document is unreadable or the model refuses, mark the affected coverage and route it to the reviewer instead of treating the absence of candidates as no obligations.
Check cross-references and exceptions with the professional. A retrieved paragraph may appear clear while a linked clause changes its context. The assistant should preserve the connection and evidence need rather than presenting an isolated sentence as a complete obligation.
Work through normal, conditional and duplicate clauses
In a hypothetical normal case, a clause names the defined Contractor and a report after a stated period. The assistant records the action and definition reference. The lawyer confirms the interpretation, and the operational owner then agrees how approved reporting tasks will be managed.
In a conditional case, the clause depends on a specified notice. The register records that dependency and holds task activation. The responsible professional decides what the clause means, while the authorised process verifies whether the relevant triggering event occurred.
In a duplicate case, the same clause appears in two collected copies of one verified agreement. Keep one candidate with provenance for the copies. If a later document contains changed wording, do not collapse it into the original candidate or select a version by upload time. The professional establishes the applicable relationship.
Keep approved tasks separate from tool requests
OpenAI's function-calling guide distinguishes the model requesting an operation, application execution and returned output. Apply that distinction to the operational handoff: a suggestion to create a reminder is not an approved or verified reminder. Source: OpenAI function calling
The application checks the current approved item, actor, target and payload before executing an authorised task action. If the source or interpretation changes, review affected tasks and preserve the earlier record. An uncertain operation should be reconciled before another attempt creates duplicate assignments.
This register covers party-action-trigger relationships across the agreement. A renewal diary concentrates on date purposes and approved reminders for renewal-related clauses. Keeping those outputs separate helps the reviewer assess the particular operational decision without treating every extracted date as an obligation.
FAQ about extracting contract obligations
Can the assistant decide that a sentence creates a binding obligation?
That determination belongs to the responsible lawyer. The assistant prepares candidate wording and relationships with sources, while keeping interpretation status explicit.
Should every shall sentence become a task?
No. Review the applicable source, defined party, context, conditions and approved operational meaning. A candidate may be held, excluded or require a different treatment after professional review.
What if the party is named through a definition rather than directly?
Preserve the defined term and its source definition. Do not replace it with a guessed organisation or individual. The reviewer confirms the relevant identity and allocation before task handoff.
If your business needs help defining this process, explore AI agents for law firms, the wider AI automation services, and our custom-agent workflow guide. The agents and automation comparison and custom AI agent glossary explain the terms. To discuss your records and approval rules, get in touch.