MCP for Legal: Connect Contract and Matter Data to AI¶

Legal work is document work, and the documents are scattered. Contracts live in a contract system, in a shared drive, and in someone's email. Obligations are recorded in notes rather than in a register. Outside counsel spend arrives as invoices. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) lets ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity search and join those sources in plain English, read-only, with each answer citing where it came from.

The contract question nobody can answer quickly¶

Ask most businesses what auto-renews in the next ninety days, or which vendors have a termination-for-convenience clause, and the honest answer is that someone would have to go looking.

MCP turns those into a query across the places contracts actually live:

"Which contracts auto-renew in the next 90 days, and what is the notice period for each?"
"Which agreements contain an exclusivity clause with a supplier?"
"What did we agree with this vendor on liability caps and payment terms?"
"Which contracts name a governing law we have not used before?"

The answer is assembled from live documents, not from a register someone remembered to update.

Renewal and obligation tracking¶

Missed notice windows are pure cost. They are also a scheduling problem across systems:

"List every agreement with a notice period falling in the next 60 days, with the owner and the amount at stake."
"Which obligations are due this quarter across all active agreements?"
"Which contracts have no renewal owner assigned?"
"What commitments did we make in the last six months that carry a penalty if missed?"

Matter and outside counsel spend¶

"What did we spend with each outside firm over the last twelve months, by matter type?"
"Which matters are still open, and what has each cost to date?"
"Compare effective hourly rates across firms for comparable work."
"Which invoices are outstanding and how old are they?"

Where billing data reaches the finance system and matter data reaches a register or database, the spend question stops needing a manual reconciliation.

Document search across systems¶

The single most useful capability is finding the clause. Legal documents sit in a drive, in email, and in a case system, and a search that only covers one of them produces false confidence.

"Find every agreement that mentions this counterparty, and summarise the obligations on each side."
"Which policy documents mention data retention, and when were they last updated?"
"Show me the negotiation history for this contract, including the earlier drafts in email."

Compliance and readiness¶

"Which of our vendors have signed the current data processing addendum, and which are on the old version?"
"Which agreements are missing a signed copy in the system of record?"
"What evidence do we hold for each access control commitment in this agreement?"

How CorpusIQ fits¶

CorpusIQ is the connector layer between the systems you already run and the AI assistant you already use. Retrieval is read-only and cited.

Documents and drafts. Connect Google Drive or OneDrive for contracts, templates, and policy documents.
Email and negotiation history. Connect Gmail or Outlook to search the thread where the terms were agreed.
Structured registers. Connect Airtable or a supported database for contract registers, obligation logs, and matter lists.
Finance. Connect QuickBooks for outside counsel invoices and spend.
Communication. Connect Slack for internal approvals and sign-off context.
Contract systems. Where a contract lifecycle tool exposes a supported database, reach it read-only through the database bridge.

Frequently Asked Questions¶

Can the AI review or redline a contract?

It can read your documents and answer questions about them, with citations to the source. It cannot write to your document systems, and CorpusIQ does not offer legal advice. The output supports a reviewer; it does not replace one.

Do we need to move contracts into a new system?

No. CorpusIQ connects to where the documents already are, whether that is a shared drive, a document management system, or email, plus any register you keep in Airtable or a database.

Can the assistant change or delete a document?

No. The retrieval tools documented here are marked read-only. Nothing in a connected system can be created, edited, moved, or deleted through the assistant.

Is privileged material exposed?

Nobody at CorpusIQ can access your accounts, and you authorize each connection yourself through the provider's own OAuth flow. The assistant can only read what the credentials you granted can read, and access is per user.

What should we ask first?

The renewal calendar. "What auto-renews in the next 90 days, and what is the notice period?" is a question that pays for the connection the first time it prevents a missed window.

Internal Links¶

Part of the MCP knowledge base at corpusiq.io - connect 40+ business tools to AI.

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