Build Your Own Copilot Legal Assistant — No Tech Skills Required

Ben Schorr explains how attorneys can use Microsoft Copilot Agent Builder to create customized, high-value authorized assistants, or brokers. Simply give your self quarter-hour.

Microsoft Copilot is nice at answering questions, summarizing paperwork, and drafting emails — however what if it might do these issues tuned particularly to your observe, already aware of your agency’s most well-liked language, your purchasers and your workflows? That’s what Copilot brokers are for. And you don’t want to jot down a single line of code to construct one.

Word: To make use of Copilot Agent Builder, you’ll need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. In case you are undecided whether or not your agency has one, verify together with your IT division or administrator.

What Is a Copilot Agent?

Consider a Copilot agent as a specialist model of Copilot configured for a particular job. You give it a reputation, a task, directions and, optionally, some paperwork to attract from.

Listed here are just a few examples related to authorized work.

A doc overview authorized assistant that evaluates uploaded contracts or agreements towards a firm-provided playbook, flagging points and summarizing its findings for the reviewing lawyer.

A matter-opening guidelines agent that walks a paralegal by the steps your agency requires each time a brand new file is created.

A shopper communication helper that drafts correspondence within the tone and elegance your agency prefers, so you aren’t continually enhancing AI drafts to sound like your self.

The place to Discover Agent Builder

In Microsoft 365 Copilot chat, you’ll discover Agent Builder on the navigation pane on the left facet. Simply search for Create agent (in some experiences, it could say “New agent”):

Constructing Your First Agent: A Step-by-Step Stroll-By

Let’s stroll by constructing a sensible, high-value Copilot authorized assistant: a doc overview assistant that evaluates contracts and agreements towards your agency’s personal overview playbook. The identical steps apply to any agent you wish to construct.

Step 1: Give Your Copilot Authorized Assistant a Identify and a Function

Click on Create agent and also you’ll land within the Agent Builder interface. It appears to be like so much like a kind. The primary subject asks for a reputation. Decide one thing descriptive — “Contract Evaluate Assistant,”,“NDA Reviewer” or “Lease Evaluate Guidelines” are all good examples.

A transparent title issues as a result of that is what colleagues will see after they go to decide on an agent.

Subsequent, write a brief description of what the agent does. Consider this because the label on the can. It doesn’t have an effect on the agent’s conduct, but it surely helps individuals perceive what it’s for.

Step 2: Write the Agent Directions

That is crucial half, and it doesn’t should be sophisticated. The directions subject is the place you inform the agent what its job is, the way it ought to behave, and what it ought to and shouldn’t do.

For our doc overview assistant, one thing like this works effectively:

You’re a contract overview assistant for a regulation agency. When a person uploads a doc, overview it rigorously towards the agency’s overview playbook offered in your data base. Establish any provisions which are lacking, non-standard, or that deviate from the agency’s most well-liked positions. For every difficulty you discover, be aware the part of the doc the place it seems, clarify why it’s a concern, and counsel the way it could be addressed. Current your findings as a structured abstract, organized from highest to lowest threat. Don’t present a last authorized opinion or inform the person whether or not to signal or reject the doc — your function is to floor the problems so the reviewing lawyer could make that decision.

Discover just a few issues about these directions. They inform the agent what to do, easy methods to construction its output (organized by threat degree), and — crucially — the place its lane ends. The agent surfaces points; the lawyer makes the decision.

Step 3: Add Information for Your Copilot Authorized Assistant

That is the place our doc overview agent actually involves life. You may give your agent paperwork to attract from (issues saved in your SharePoint web site or OneDrive), and it’ll seek the advice of these paperwork when forming its responses.

For a doc overview assistant, crucial factor to add is your agency’s overview playbook: the doc (or set of paperwork) that describes your most well-liked positions on widespread contract provisions.

This would possibly embody issues like:

Acceptable and unacceptable indemnification language

Your commonplace positions on limitation of legal responsibility caps

Required and prohibited governing regulation or jurisdiction clauses

Provisions that should all the time be current in agreements of a given sort

If the playbook already lives in your SharePoint or OneDrive, Agent Builder can connect with it proper the place it’s — no want to maneuver or re-upload something.

Step 4: Set the Dialog Starters

Agent Builder enables you to outline just a few prompt prompts that seem when somebody first opens the agent — shortcut buttons that get individuals began with out having to consider what to sort. For a doc overview agent, good starters could be: “Evaluate an uploaded contract” or “I’ve an NDA I’d such as you to judge.”

Step 5: Take a look at and Publish Your Agent Directions

Earlier than sharing, use the preview pane on the precise facet of the display screen to check the agent your self. Attempt sensible situations — add a pattern contract, ask edge-case questions, see if it stays in its lane. Most brokers want a spherical or two of tweaks earlier than they’re prepared.

If you find yourself glad, click on Create. You can also make it accessible to simply your self, to particular colleagues, or to the entire group.

4 Suggestions for Writing Higher Agent Directions

The directions you write are the center of your agent. Right here are some things that make an actual distinction:

Be particular concerning the function. “You’re a shopper consumption assistant for a small household regulation agency” provides the agent extra helpful context than “You assist purchasers.” The extra exactly you outline the function, the extra constantly the agent will keep in that lane.

Describe the tone. Would you like the agent to be heat and conversational? Formal and exact? Transient and direct? Say so. “Use an expert however approachable tone, as if chatting with somebody who could also be anxious a couple of authorized matter” is the form of instruction that shapes all the expertise.

Embrace guardrails. For authorized work, it’s often essential to be specific about what the agent shouldn’t do. “Don’t present authorized recommendation or opinions on the deserves of any matter” is a sentence value together with in virtually each agent your agency builds.

Inform it what to do when it doesn’t know. Instruct your agent to say so actually when a query falls outdoors its scope or when it may well’t confirm the data with excessive confidence.

ChatGPT provides one thing comparable with Customized GPTs, and legal-specific instruments are getting into this area as effectively. Some provide extra superior choices for corporations with devoted technical assets. However if you’re already on Microsoft 365 with Copilot licenses, Agent Builder retains all the pieces inside your current surroundings — your information stays in your Microsoft tenant, your brokers join on to SharePoint and OneDrive, and your IT workforce has one much less vendor to handle.

Take a Chunk Out of Repetitive Work

Agent Builder is not going to substitute the judgment that makes an incredible lawyer — however having an agent can take an actual chunk out of the repetitive, procedural work that fills up the day. In case your agency has Microsoft 365 Copilot, you have already got entry to it. Your first Copilot authorized assistant takes about quarter-hour to construct.

That could be a fairly good return on a day experiment.

About Affinity Consulting Group

Affinity Consulting Group conjures up, permits and empowers authorized groups of all sizes to work smarter, from anyplace. The corporate’s holistic method incorporates individuals, course of and know-how. Affinity’s passionate, well-connected trade consultants work hand in hand with you that will help you higher perceive and optimize your small business — from software program to development technique, and all the pieces in between.

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