Paralegals review an agent's decisions the way they would check a junior colleague's work, with one addition: the record tells them exactly why the agent did what it did. They read that record, find the bound that decided, check the source documents behind the decision, then approve, edit or decline it with a reason the supervising lawyer could rely on.
Which agent decisions does a paralegal review?
In legal work, agents rarely send anything outside the firm on their own. The decisions paralegals review are mostly internal but consequential:
- Document classification in a disclosure exercise: relevant, not relevant, possibly privileged.
- Chronologies and summaries drawn from correspondence and pleadings.
- Matter intake: conflict check results and the proposed matter type.
- Deadline calculations entered as drafts for the diary.
- Routine correspondence at depth 2, drafted for a person to send.
Some are held for review before anything happens. Others were allowed, for example a document marked "not relevant" at depth 3 within the firm's limits, and only a sample of those is reviewed later. Both matter. A wrongly excluded document is invisible until the other side finds it.
What are the steps?
- Read the record. It shows the verdict, the draft, the sources and the version of the agent's brief. For a classification, it shows which passages the agent relied on.
- Find the deciding bound. Every action meets five bounds: role scope, certificate, sources, the firm's own limits and the platform guardrails. A classification held because the firm's limits route every "possibly privileged" document to a person is different from one held because the agent could not read an attachment.
- Check the sources. Did the agent rely on the document itself or on metadata? On the court's own record or on a party's description of it? Statements in a chronology should trace to the strongest source available.
- Apply the matter's instructions. The review protocol for this matter, not general rules, decides relevance and privilege categories.
- Decide and record. Approve, edit or decline, with a reason short enough to write and specific enough to defend.
What stays with the paralegal, and what goes up?
| Decision | Who decides |
|---|---|
| A clear relevance call under the review protocol | Paralegal |
| Correcting a wrong date, party or reference | Paralegal |
| Whether a document is privileged | Supervising lawyer |
| Whether to disclose a borderline document | Supervising lawyer |
| Whether a conflict can be managed | Partner or risk team |
The agent drafts across every row. The person decides according to the firm's delegation.
A worked example
Take a commercial litigation team using an agent to classify 12,000 documents for disclosure. The agent marks most as not relevant at depth 3 and holds anything it scores as possibly privileged. In the daily sample, a paralegal reviews 40 of the documents it marked not relevant.
Three are spreadsheets the agent classified from their file names alone, because the attachments were password-protected and it could not open them. The record shows the sources bound decided: the agent had no access to the content, and still made a call. The paralegal edits all three to "needs review", records the reason, and raises the pattern. The process owner changes the firm's limits so any unreadable attachment is held rather than classified. The next day's sample is clean on that point, and the record shows when the rule changed.
How do paralegals keep reviews sound?
- Sample from the allowed pile, not only the held one. That is where silent errors live.
- Note the time spent. Rapid approvals on complex documents suggest the review is not happening.
- Compare with colleagues. Run a weekly review of agent decisions with the team to calibrate relevance calls.
- Bank corrections. An edit that recurs belongs in the agent's brief.
Other teams review decisions with the same structure; compare how collections agents review an agent's decisions and how customer support agents review them. The skills map for every role is in AI agent skills by role.
Where the Academy fits
The Operator track in Pryme Intelligence Academy covers how a governed agent decides, human review, and keeping knowledge current, which is where review protocols and matter instructions belong. Module tests are set in the learner's own industry and role, so paralegals are tested on legal decisions. Certified Pryme Operator is valid for 12 months, and a lapsed certificate shows as lapsed on the same page anyone uses to check it.
Questions people ask
How big should a daily sample be?
Big enough that an error pattern would show within a few days. Weight it towards document types the agent handles least often.
Can a paralegal overrule a privilege call the agent made?
They can flag it, but privilege decisions belong to the supervising lawyer. The paralegal's job is to make sure the lawyer sees it.
Do paralegals need to understand how the agent works?
Enough to read the record: what depth means, what the deciding bound tells you, and how source provenance affects weight. No technical knowledge beyond that.