Use an AI contract review to understand the agreement, list what needs attention, and prepare questions. Instruct a qualified lawyer when you need legal advice, negotiation strategy, representation, or professional judgment. Outlex is live for companies operating in Portugal, where Law 10/2024 treats that human step as a professional act.
The useful question is not whether software can open a PDF. It is which level of support this decision needs now. A short agreement is not automatically low-risk. A familiar template is not automatically safe. A long agreement is not automatically a reason to skip the first pass.
This page is written for a company that has to sign, send, or refuse a commercial contract. It is not written for a worker contesting an employment document. Outlex is not a law firm, a regulated legal practice, or a professional legal services firm.
What does an AI contract review catch?
An AI contract review is a structured first reading. It helps the company see what the document actually says before anyone spends professional time on it. It does not decide whether you should sign. It does not tell you what the law requires. It organises the paper so the next conversation is specific.
In Outlex that first reading has two layers. Lexi is the conversational layer: summarise the agreement, name the parties, pull out term, renewal, termination, payment, data, intellectual property and liability, and turn dense clauses into questions the team can answer. Contract Review is the structured layer: a usable list of what needs attention, grouped so you are not rebuilding the same notes in a second document.
What the first pass is for
- What does each side promise, and what happens if they do not?
- Which obligations survive termination?
- Where is information missing, circular, or too broad to operate?
- Which clauses sit far from the commercial position the company thought it had?
- Which points should go to the counterparty, and which points are internal decisions?
That output is informational, educational, drafting and workflow support. It is preparation. It is not legal advice, legal review, or a substitute for a qualified Professional.
Uploading a contract can include names, emails, signatures and other identifiers. Under Article 4(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. Know what you are putting into the review and why. That duty sits with the company. It does not turn the review into advice about the processing.
Use this pass on paper the company already intends to understand: a supplier agreement, a customer contract, an NDA, a data processing agreement, a partnership draft. Do not use it as the last word on a dispute, a regulator letter, or a deal that changes who owns or controls the company.
What does a lawyer catch that AI does not?
A lawyer catches the part that is not on the page yet: the facts around the deal, the law that actually applies, the professional duty attached to the answer, and a judgment the company can instruct from. Software can classify text and compare patterns. It cannot accept a mandate, appear in a forum, or take responsibility for the advice.
In Portugal that distinction is written down. Law 10/2024 of 19 January (Lei n.º 10/2024) is the legal regime for acts of lawyers and solicitors. Article 6 defines consulta jurídica as legal advice that consists in interpreting and applying legal norms at the request of a third party. Article 4 makes the forensic mandate an exclusive professional act. Reading your own contract inside the company is not the same thing as asking a third party to tell you what the law requires of you.
Instruct a qualified lawyer when the next step is one of these:
- a legal conclusion about rights, duties, or remedies;
- a negotiation strategy, including what this counterparty is likely to accept;
- representation in a dispute, a regulator exchange, or a formal claim;
- a company-making transaction: control, ownership, a financing round, a founder split;
- an accountable view of a material risk the board or investors will rely on.
Those are the moments where “we ran it through software” is not an answer. The document still needs a person who can stand behind the judgment.
Signals that should change the route
- Uncapped or one-sided exposure: liability, indemnities or warranties could exceed the commercial value of the deal.
- Rights you cannot give: the draft assigns intellectual property, data or licences the company does not own or cannot sublicense.
- Operational promises without an owner: security, audit, response, support or compliance duties do not match how the team actually works.
- An unclear framework: the parties, governing law, forum, document hierarchy or regulatory roles are not settled.
- Strategy decides the wording: the right mark-up depends on what this counterparty will accept, not only on what the clause currently says.
None of those signals means “never use software.” They mean the first pass is not the finish. Send the organised list, the open questions, and the commercial context with the instruction. Paying a Professional to rebuild that context from a blank inbox is the expensive version of the same work.
What does each cost?
They buy different work. An AI contract review buys a first pass: what the document says, where attention concentrates, and which questions to take next. A lawyer’s fee buys qualified time: advice, negotiation, representation, and judgment. Mixing them up is how companies either overpay to have a contract summarised, or under-brief the person whose name is on the advice.
Hourly legal work is priced on the Professional’s time. The bill grows when the instruction is “please read this and tell us what it means” with no list of issues. Spend that time on the unusual clauses and the points that need a legal conclusion.
This page does not publish Outlex plan prices. Prices live on the pricing page. For the market ranges we still use for European company legal work, read How much a startup lawyer costs in Europe. That article is the cost page. This article is the routing page.
Do not treat a product trial as legal advice. Do not treat a structured review as a discounted substitute for a round, a dispute, or a change of control. The cheap mistake is sending every clause out at an hourly rate. The expensive mistake is skipping the Professional on the clause that actually moves the company.
When should you use which?
Start with the decision in front of you, not with a brand preference for software or for counsel. Most commercial paper for a company operating in Portugal can take the sequence: understand, list what needs attention, then instruct a Professional on the remainder. Some matters skip the middle. A few skip the first pass only because delay is itself the risk.
| Situation | Start with | Instruct a lawyer when |
|---|---|---|
| Standard NDA or supplier paper | Lexi and Contract Review | the scope is unusually broad, remedies are aggressive, or strategic know-how is in the draft |
| Customer or supplier commercial agreement | Contract Review | liability, intellectual property, service levels, exclusivity or termination could materially affect the business |
| Data processing agreement | Contract Review plus the privacy file you already keep | roles are unclear, sensitive data is involved, transfers are complex, or a new processing changes the picture |
| Dispute, regulator letter or threatened claim | Qualified lawyer | immediately; software may help organise facts but should not lead the response |
| Company-making deal | Qualified lawyer | from the start, with software used to prepare the file and keep versions straight |
If the team cannot name the commercial outcome it wants, neither software nor counsel will rescue the draft. Write that down first: what you must keep, what you can give, what you will walk away from. Then run the review. Then send the exceptions. If two founders disagree about the same clause, resolve the commercial point before you ask a Professional whether the mark-up does what you just agreed.
How does Outlex hand off to Human Legal Support in Portugal?
Outlex is live for companies operating in Portugal. The product path is: upload the agreement, see the summary and the points that need attention, use Lexi to prepare the next step, and ask for Human Legal Support when the company needs a human assessment.
Human Legal Support is a Portugal add-on. It is provided by an appropriately qualified Professional. It is not Outlex practising law. It is not a network of counsel in other countries. It is not “depending on the jurisdiction.” If the matter needs advice, representation, or an accountable legal conclusion in Portugal, the handoff is the route. If the matter sits outside that live market, instruct counsel who is qualified there. Do not ask the product to cover it.
The handoff is only as good as the file you send. Attach the current draft, the issue list, the commercial position, and the question you want answered. “Please review this contract” is an expensive instruction. “These three clauses conflict with our position on liability and termination; do we have a legal problem if we sign?” is a usable one. Lexi can help write that question. Contract Review can keep the clause, the impact and the next step in one place. The Professional still does the legal work. They should not have to rebuild the deal from a forwarded PDF.
See the contract in front of you. Open contract review for companies operating in Portugal.
Which Portuguese rules matter?
Three public sources sit behind this page. None of them turns contract software into a lawyer. None of them forbids a company from reading its own paper with software. They draw the line around advice, representation, and how you use AI and personal data.
Law 10/2024. Atitle 1 says the statute establishes the legal regime for acts of lawyers and solicitors. Article 4(2) reserves the forensic mandate as an exclusive professional act. Article 4(4) lists further competences, including legal consultation. Article 4(5) and 4(6) matter for in-house work: those acts are professional acts of lawyers and solicitors when exercised in the interest of third parties in a professional activity, and acts by a company’s own representatives or employees acting in that capacity are not treated as being in the interest of third parties. Article 6 defines legal consultation as advice that interprets and applies legal norms at a third party’s request. Outlex does not provide that consultation. Human Legal Support in Portugal is how a qualified Professional can.
The AI Act. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 is the Artificial Intelligence Act. Article 4 requires providers and deployers to take measures, to their best extent, so that staff and other people who operate or use AI systems on their behalf have a sufficient level of AI literacy. That is a reason to know what the review can and cannot do. It is not a reason to treat the output as legal advice. Article 14 requires certain high-risk systems to be designed so natural persons can oversee them while they are in use. Ordinary contract-review software is not turned into a lawyer by that article. This page does not claim that Outlex is a high-risk system.
The GDPB. If the uploaded file identifies a person, Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 is in play. Treat the upload as a processing decision the company owns. Do not confuse that decision with a legal review of the contract itself.
Official sources used here:
- Lei n.º 10/2024, de 19 de janeiro, Regime Jurídico dos Atos de Advogados e Solicitadores — Diário da República n.º 14/2024, Série I, 19 January 2024; Articles 1, 4 and 6.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Artificial Intelligence Act — Articles 4 and 14.
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679, General Data Protection Regulation — Article 4(1).
This guide is for general information only and is not legal advice. It was prepared by Outlex using public legal sources and product context. For advice on a specific situation in Portugal, speak with a qualified lawyer. Last updated 11 September 2026.