Have the contract reviewed and redlined before you sign it
Contract review services examine an agreement you have been asked to sign, before you sign it: a reviewer reads every clause against your side of the deal, marks proposed changes as a tracked-changes redline, and explains each risk in plain English. The deliverable is a markup you can send back to the other party plus a memo telling you what to negotiate, what to accept, and what is missing entirely.
Upload the contract, get one flat fee quoted from the document itself, and receive an attorney-reviewed redline, risk memo, and negotiation talking points back through the secure portal. Not sure the document needs a full review yet? Start with the free AI contract risk scanner and see what it flags first.
Written and legally reviewed by our editorial team
Redline · Risk Memo · Talking Points
Reviewed against the governing-law state named in your contract
Contract Redlining Services: What Comes Back to You
A review that ends with "looks mostly fine" is not a review. Every engagement returns four concrete pieces, in editable form, built to be used in the negotiation the same day.
Clause-by-clause redline in tracked changes
Every risky, one-sided, or ambiguous clause is rewritten directly in the document as tracked changes, so you can accept, reject, or forward the markup to the other side without retyping anything.
Plain-English risk memo
A memo keyed to the redline explains what each flagged clause does to you in practice: who pays when something breaks, who owns what, and how hard it is to get out. No statute-speak without a translation. The memo also extracts the key dates and standing obligations buried in the terms, renewal and cancellation windows, notice periods, and deliverable deadlines, so nothing auto-renews or lapses because it was hidden in a schedule.
Missing-protection flags
The dangerous part of a contract is often what is not there. We flag absent or hollow indemnification, limitation of liability, termination rights, IP assignment, governing-law and dispute-resolution provisions, arbitration and forum-selection terms, force majeure coverage, and auto-renewal traps before you sign into them.
Negotiation talking points
Ranked asks for the counterparty: the changes worth walking over, the ones worth trading, and the fallback language to propose if they push back. You go into the negotiation with a script, not a hunch.
Business Contract Review, and the Personal Contracts That Work the Same Way
Most of what crosses the review desk is commercial paper: the other side's template, drafted for the other side's benefit. The same is true of the contracts individuals sign, a lease or an employment offer is a business contract where you are the smaller party. We review both, against the governing-law state named in the document.
NDAs and confidentiality agreements
Definition scope, residuals language, term and survival, and non-solicit riders hiding inside mutual NDAs.
Master services agreements
Indemnity against the limitation of liability, acceptance and warranty mechanics, SLA teeth, and payment terms.
Service agreements
Scope creep language, change-order pricing, IP ownership of work product, and termination for convenience.
Vendor contracts
Auto-renewal windows, price-escalation clauses, exclusivity, and data-handling obligations you inherit.
Commercial and residential leases
CAM and pass-through charges, personal guarantees, repair allocation, and early-exit and assignment rights.
Employment offers and contractor agreements
Non-competes and non-solicits, IP assignment reach into side projects, bonus and equity conditions, severance triggers.
SaaS and subscription agreements
Auto-renewal and price-uplift terms, usage and seat limits, data ownership and deletion on exit, uptime and SLA credits, and liability capped against the subscription value.
Statements of work
Deliverable and acceptance definitions, milestone and payment triggers, change-order mechanics, and how the SOW interacts with the master agreement it sits under.
For non-contract documents, such as affidavits, settlement papers, and court filings, see our review desk for legal documents that are not contracts.
Who Sends Contracts In Before Signing
The common thread is asymmetry: the other party drafted the document, has signed hundreds like it, and knows exactly which clauses do the damage. The review puts a licensed attorney on your side of that imbalance for one bounded engagement.
Founders and small businesses
Companies signing the counterparty's template without in-house counsel: vendor MSAs, supplier terms, partnership paper, and financing side agreements. The review levels a negotiation the other side's lawyers drafted.
Freelancers, consultants, and creators
Client agreements, agency contracts, and brand deals where payment terms, kill fees, and IP assignment are written against the person doing the work. The redline turns a take-it-or-leave-it draft into a counter.
Individuals at a signature moment
Leases, employment offers, severance packages, and non-competes. One document, one deadline, and a counterparty who has signed a thousand of these. The review tells you what you are actually agreeing to.
Law firms and lean legal teams
Firms and one-counsel legal departments that want inbound contracts screened before partner or GC time is spent. Recurring volume runs as a standing review desk behind your own letterhead.
Flat Fee Contract Review Instead of an Hourly Meter
Hourly review has a built-in conflict: the longer the reviewer reads, the more you pay, and you cannot know the total until it is over. We quote every review as one flat fee, calculated from the contract itself, its length, its complexity, and how one-sided the draft is, before any work starts. A two-page NDA and a forty-page MSA are different quotes, but each is a single known number, and the quote includes the redline, the memo, the talking points, and follow-up questions. There is no subscription, no retainer, and no minimum volume: one contract is a normal engagement.
Single contract review
One document, one flat fee.
The standard engagement. Upload the contract, accept the quote, get the redline, memo, and talking points back, and ask follow-up questions until you understand the document. No subscription, no retainer, no minimum volume: one contract is a normal engagement.
Recurring review desk
Standing screening for inbound paper.
Firms with recurring volume, such as a legal team that wants every inbound vendor agreement screened, can put the same review bench behind their own letterhead through the white-label drafting and review program for law firms. For firms and lean legal teams, we apply your standard positions and fallback terms across recurring reviews, so every contract is marked to the same playbook rather than one reviewer's judgment call.
Redline to rebuild
When the draft is beyond saving.
Some agreements are too one-sided or too broken to fix with markup. When the review shows that, the fix is a rebuild, not a redline: our senior contract drafters can rebuild the agreement from your deal terms.
Do You Need a Contract Review Lawyer, or a Reviewed Contract?
They are different purchases. Engaging a contract review lawyer at a firm buys representation: the attorney is your counsel, can negotiate for you, and can appear for you if the deal turns into a dispute. What most people signing an NDA, MSA, or lease actually need is the work product, a licensed attorney's reading of the document, delivered as a redline and memo they can act on themselves. That is what this service sells: every review here is performed by a licensed attorney, but Legal Tank is not a law firm, does not represent you, and does not appear in negotiations or court.
When the situation is adversarial, the contract is already breached, you are being threatened with suit, or the counterparty has counsel actively negotiating against you, retain counsel. Our guide to when a contracts law attorney is the right hire covers where that line sits.
Legal Tank is not a law firm and does not provide legal representation. Contract reviews are prepared as document work product by licensed attorneys; no attorney-client relationship is formed, and we do not negotiate with counterparties, file, or appear on your behalf. Your contract uploads to an encrypted portal rather than an email thread, only the reviewing attorney sees it, and we delete the file once you confirm you have the redline.
How the Review Runs, Upload to Redline
Four steps, one flat fee, and no work begins before you accept the quote.
- 1
Upload and flat quote
Send the contract through the quote form. You get one flat fee and a turnaround, quoted from the document itself, before any work starts.
- 2
Attorney review
A licensed attorney reads the full agreement against your side of the deal and the governing-law state named in it.
- 3
Redline and memo delivered
The tracked-changes redline, risk memo, and negotiation talking points come back through the secure portal, editable.
- 4
Follow-up questions answered
If the counterparty responds or a flagged clause needs a second look, you can ask. The review is done when you understand the document, not when the file is sent.
How Your Contract Is Handled, Upload to Deletion
Contracts carry pricing, customer names, and deal terms the counterparty has not published either. Three controls cover the file for the life of the engagement.
Encrypted portal, not an email thread
The contract, side letters, and earlier drafts upload to an encrypted client portal. Nothing moves as a loose email attachment, and the redline returns through the same channel.
Attorney-only access
Access to your upload is provisioned to the reviewing attorney and nobody else. Your contract is used to review your contract, not for anything else.
Deleted when you confirm
Once you confirm you have the redline and memo, we delete the source file. If you want it gone sooner, ask and it is removed on request.
What Clients Say After the Redline Comes Back
Real reviews from clients who put a contract in front of us before they signed it.
“I am a content creator and kept getting brand deals with terrible contracts that I would just sign blindly. They built me a contract review checklist and then drafted a counter-template I can send back. Now I actually negotiate instead of accepting whatever is put in front of me. The first brand I sent it to bumped their offer.”
“Wrote my distribution agreement when I started importing product. There were tax and customs angles I hadn't even considered and they flagged them before they became problems. The kind of thing you don't know you need until someone who knows what they're doing points it out.”
“Used the service three times now for different contracts. Consistency is what keeps me coming back.”
“10/10. Saved me a fortune in attorney fees.”
Contract Review Services FAQ
How much do lawyers charge to review contracts?
What does a contract reviewer do?
Is $900 an hour a lot for a lawyer?
What not to tell the attorney?
Do I need a contract review attorney near me?
How long does a contract review take, and what do I get back?
Can you review a contract governed by another state's law or a multi-jurisdiction deal, and what file formats do you accept?
Get the Contract in Front of an Attorney Today
Quotes return within one business day with the flat fee and turnaround. Signature deadlines and rush reviews are handled at quote.
One flat fee, quoted from the document itself, before any work starts