Checking every source an agent relied on is the paralegal's most decisive skill, because a draft built on the wrong clause or an outdated precedent misleads everyone who reads it next. Ranked after it: reviewing drafts before the supervising lawyer, guarding deadlines and filings, keeping matter boundaries intact, and recording corrections.
What work moves from the paralegal to the agent?
Paralegals review documents, extract key terms, prepare bundles, draft routine correspondence and forms, track deadlines and manage matter files. An agent reads at depth 1 and drafts at depth 2 very quickly. It can extract clauses from hundreds of leases, summarise disclosure, populate a court form or draft a chaser to the other side.
What it does not do is file, send on the firm's behalf without a person, or decide what a clause means for the client. The paralegal becomes the first reviewer of the agent's work and the person who knows where it is likely to be wrong.
Which skills matter most, in order?
- Checking sources and citations. The firm's own clause library and precedents are sealed. A counterparty's draft is signed by a named party. A case summary pulled from an unvetted web page is external. The paralegal must check that the draft rests on the right source, that cited authorities exist and say what is claimed, and that precedents are the current versions.
- Reviewing drafts first. A supervising lawyer's time is expensive. The paralegal catches missing schedules, wrong party names, inconsistent defined terms and anything the agent summarised away.
- Guarding deadlines and filings. Limitation dates, court deadlines and completion dates are hard to recover if missed. The agent tracks and reminds; filing is held for a person. The paralegal confirms each date against the source.
- Keeping matter boundaries. Confidentiality and conflicts depend on information staying within its matter. The agent's role scope should be matter-bound, and the paralegal should notice and report any draft that draws on another client's file.
- Recording corrections. A one-line reason on each changed extraction lets the builder fix the extraction rule rather than the paralegal fixing it every time.
What does the agent do, and what stays with the paralegal?
| Task | The agent | The paralegal |
|---|---|---|
| Clause extraction | Extracts and tabulates at depth 1 | Checks a sample and every unusual result |
| Routine correspondence | Drafts at depth 2 | Reviews and sends or passes to the lawyer |
| Court forms | Populates from the file | Checks every field and the version of the form |
| Deadlines | Calculates and reminds | Confirms against the source and diaries |
| Filing | Held | Files, or passes to the lawyer to file |
What does source checking look like on a real matter?
Take a property team reviewing 200 commercial leases for a portfolio acquisition. The agent extracts rent, term, break dates and repair obligations into a table. On one lease it records "no break clause".
The paralegal spot-checks the leases with no break, because a missed break option changes the value of the asset. In this one, the break right sits in a side letter scanned as a separate file in the data room, which the agent did not link to the lease. The paralegal corrects the table and notes: "Search the data room for side letters and deeds of variation by property address before recording terms." The builder adds that step, and the next extraction run finds two more side letters.
Paralegals in different markets face different professional rules; see paralegal training in legal services in Italy and in Australia. Underwriters share the habit of checking source documents closely; compare skills for underwriters.
How should a firm build these skills?
Give paralegals a seeded set of agent drafts with planted errors: a wrong party name, an outdated form, a missing side letter, a citation that does not exist. Time how quickly each is found. Teach the provenance view early, before habits form. The case for paralegals as the real control is in why paralegals are the real control, and the role map is in AI agent skills by role. A common baseline, such as the Foundations track at Pryme Intelligence Academy, helps lawyers and paralegals speak about depth and held actions the same way.
Questions people ask
Should paralegals check every extracted clause?
No. Check a sample, every result that would change the advice, and every "not found" on a term that usually exists. Absence is where extraction most often fails.
Can the agent send letters to the other side?
Routine chasers can be sent at depth 3 if the firm allows it and the agent is certified. Anything that states a position for the client stays with a lawyer.
Does the agent change the paralegal career path?
It moves the role towards review and matter management. Paralegals who can spot what an agent misses become more valuable, not less.