In this article:
Overview
The LawVu Business Assistant (beta) is an AI-powered assistant in the LawVu Business Portal. It helps business users find information, work with documents, create legal requests, and navigate legal processes through a simple chat experience.
The assistant only uses information available in your LawVu environment and respects your existing permissions. It can only access records and content you're authorized to view. Assistant is currently in Beta.
The assistant never acts without your approval. Before it submits a legal request, creates a contract, posts an update or makes any other change in LawVu, it shows you what it's about to do and waits for you to confirm.
The Business Assistant will power LawVu's channel experience, starting with the Business Portal. Other channels, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and email, will follow.
Note: The Business Assistant is currently in beta.
Beta features let you access and evaluate new capabilities before they're generally available. During the beta period, we collect feedback, validate real-world usage and continue to improve the experience. Functionality, workflows and the user experience may change over time.
Tip: As the experience evolves, ask the Business Assistant what it can do.
Getting access
Existing LawVu Assistant customers (Early Access Program)
If your organization already uses the LawVu Assistant for legal users, the Business Assistant is automatically enabled for Org Admins and in-house legal users as part of the Early Access Program. This lets your legal team evaluate the assistant before making it more broadly available to the business.
Business users don't receive access automatically. By default, the Business Assistant is turned off for standard users.
New customers
If your organization doesn't yet use the LawVu Assistant and you'd like to join the Early Access Program, speak with your Implementation Manager about eligibility and access options.
Give business users access
Org Admins can turn on the Business Assistant for individual business users:
Go to User management.
Select the standard user's profile.
Select Edit.
Under Permissions, go to LawVu Intelligence and enable the assistant.
We recommend starting with a small pilot group of business users to gather feedback and assess adoption. When you're ready to roll out to all standard users, contact your Customer Success Manager or LawVu Support and we can enable access in bulk.
Get started
In-house legal users and Org Admins
You can preview the Business Assistant from the Business Portal:
Click your profile picture in the top-right corner.
Select Open Business Portal from the dropdown menu.
Open the Business Assistant from the Business Portal header.
Your own permissions still apply when you preview the Business Portal, so your experience may differ from a business user's. See Limitations.
Business users
Once your Org Admin has given you access, sign in to the Business Portal and open the Business Assistant from the header.
Common tasks
Ask questions the way you'd ask a colleague. If the assistant needs more information, it will ask follow-up questions.
Work with matters
You can use the assistant to:
Find existing matters
Check matter status
View and post updates
Create new legal requests
Examples
"Show me my open legal requests."
"What's the status of my supplier agreement review?"
"Add an update to my contract review matter."
"Let the legal team know we received the final draft."
Work with contracts
Upload one or more documents and ask the assistant to:
Summarize content
Answer questions
Compare documents
Extract key information
Use the document to create a legal request or contract
Examples
"Summarize this agreement."
"Compare these two versions."
"What are the key obligations?"
"Extract the renewal and termination dates."
Always verify AI-generated summaries and extracted information against the original document before making legal or business decisions.
Work with documents
Upload one or more documents and ask the assistant to:
Summarise content
Answer questions
Compare documents
Extract key information
Use the document to create a legal request or contract
Examples:
"Summarise this agreement."
"Compare these two versions."
"What are the key obligations?"
"Extract the renewal and termination dates."
AI-generated summaries and extracted information should always be verified against the original document before making legal or business decisions.
Search company knowledge
If your organization stores knowledge articles in LawVu, business users can ask questions about internal policies and processes.
Examples:
"What is our contract approval process?"
"Do I need legal approval before signing this contract?"
"How do I renew a supplier agreement?"
How the assistant uses your knowledge base
The Business Assistant always checks your knowledge base first, so answers and guidance are based on your organization's own content. The more relevant articles your legal team publishes, the more questions the assistant can answer without involving legal.
If several articles may apply, the assistant asks the user to choose the most relevant one. If it can't find a relevant article, it may:
Suggest a different search
Recommend creating a legal request
Say it couldn't find a reliable answer
The assistant doesn't generate answers that can't be supported by available information.
Guiding high-risk topics
Business users can always escalate to the legal team. For high-risk topics, you can add recommendations to your articles, such as "Always escalate to legal", and link to the relevant matter or contract type. The assistant will still give useful guidance while directing the user to raise a legal request.
See how to manage your knowledge base.
Citations
When the assistant answers using your knowledge base, it includes citations so you can see where the answer came from:
The assistant searches relevant knowledge articles and their supporting attachments.
Responses are grounded in exact excerpts from the source material.
Each citation links to the original article, and to the supporting file where applicable.
Citations make answers more transparent and easier to verify and audit.
Create a legal request
You can create a legal request directly from your conversation with the assistant.
Ask your question.
Select Raise a legal request, or ask the assistant to create one.
Answer any follow-up questions.
Review the request summary and complete any required fields.
Submit the matter. The assistant won't submit a request until you confirm.
The assistant pre-populates details such as the matter name, description, type and business context from your conversation.
After you submit:
a matter is created in LawVu
your legal team receives the request
relevant conversation context is included with the matter
you can track progress in the Business Portal
Create a contract
The Business Assistant supports two ways to create a contract.
1. Generate a new contract
->Use this option to create a new contract from an approved template. The assistant helps you:
Select a contract type
Collect the required information
Check for potential duplicates
Generate the contract
Contracts generated this way are created in Draft status by default.
2. Register an existing contract
-> Use this option when you already have a contract document.
The assistant will:
Analyze the uploaded document
Suggest a contract type
Extract key information
Populate available contract fields
Let you review the details before the contract is created
You'll always be asked to confirm the contract type before the contract is created.
Duplicate detection
When you create a contract, the assistant automatically checks for potential duplicates using contract names and uploaded file names. If it finds a possible duplicate, you can choose to:
open the existing record
update the existing record
continue creating a new one
Duplicate suggestions respect your permissions. In some cases, you may be told a potential duplicate exists without seeing its details.
Working with assistant responses
Each assistant response includes actions that help you continue your work.
Copy: Copies the response so you can paste it elsewhere.
Feedback: Tell us whether a response was helpful. Feedback helps improve future responses.
Regenerate: Creates a new response to your last message. Use this if the response wasn't helpful or you'd like a different answer.
Raise a legal request: Turns the conversation into a formal legal request. Use this when legal review is required, the matter is complex or sensitive, human input is needed, or the assistant can't fully resolve the issue.
Skills
Skills let your legal team tailor how the Business Assistant responds to business users, using your organization's own guidance and processes.
You can use custom skills to:
Guide business users through your intake process for common request types
Apply your organization's rules, such as approval thresholds or when legal review is required
Examples:
Matter types: define each matter type, the phrases people use when they need it and how it's handled, such as escalating directly to legal. Example coming soon!
Contract analysis: keep responses neutral and factual, and set what the assistant can and can't do, such as summarizing key terms but not recommending whether to sign. Example coming soon!
Skills follow your existing permissions.
To create or manage skills, view this article: Custom Skills
Tips for better results
To get the most useful responses:
Ask specific questions.
Include matter, contract or project names where possible.
Upload supporting documents.
Include business context and deadlines.
Keep related questions in the same conversation.
Instead of:
"Please review."
Try:
"Help me create a legal request to review the liability and termination clauses in this supplier agreement. The contract must be signed by Friday."
Limitations
The Business Assistant is in beta and has some limitations, which may change over time.
It has the same known issues as the LawVu assistant
Previewing the Business Portal as an Org Admin or in-house legal user may not match the business user experience. Your own permissions still apply, so you may see records, actions and responses that business users don't.
During the beta, we monitor usage of the Business Assistant, including token usage, to ensure fair use and performance. We may introduce usage limits if needed.
Privacy and permissions
The Business Assistant only accesses records and information you're authorized to view. It:
respects existing permissions
doesn't bypass security controls
always asks for your approval before taking any action
uses conversation context to help complete your request
Check your conversation history
Your conversations are saved in the Business Portal, so you can return to previous chats and continue where you left off.
All conversations are captured and available for your LawVu Org Admin to view. Org Admins can use conversation history for authorized business purposes, including:
System administration
User support
Governance and compliance activities
Security and audit requirements
Platform management and troubleshooting
Treat conversations with the assistant as business records within your LawVu environment.
Use of the Business Assistant is subject to the AI Services Acceptable Use Policy
Troubleshooting
I can't see the Business Assistant
Access depends on your organization's configuration. Contact your Org Admin if you think you should have access.
The assistant gave an incorrect answer
AI-generated responses may contain errors or incomplete information. Always verify important information against the original matter, contract, document or policy before acting.
The assistant couldn't answer my question
Try:
using more specific wording
referring to the exact matter, contract or policy name
asking one question at a time
providing more context
Frequently asked questions
Can the Legal Assistant provide legal advice?
The Business Assistant is designed to provide information, not legal advice. Where appropriate, it encourages you to speak with your legal team and makes it easy to raise a legal request. Your legal team can use custom skills to tailor how it responds.
Can it summarise uploaded documents?
Yes. It can summarize documents, answer questions, compare versions and extract key information. Your legal team can use custom skills to control how the assistant reviews and summarizes documents, so its answers follow your organization's policies.
How accurate are responses?
Responses are based on information available in your LawVu environment. Like any AI-powered tool, it can make mistakes, so always verify important information.
Can it create matters and contracts?
Yes. Depending on your organization's configuration, it can help create legal requests, register existing contracts and generate new contracts from approved templates.
Does the Business Assistant take actions without my approval?
No. You'll always review and confirm the details before anything is created or submitted.
Can it use the page I'm viewing as context?
Where enabled, yes. When you're viewing a matter or contract, the assistant can use that page as context to give more relevant responses.
What's the best way to test the business user experience?
Use an account with the same permissions as a business user. This helps ensure that:
the correct permission set is applied
only records available to business users are shown
matter intake, contract creation and escalation workflows behave as expected
assistant responses reflect the end-user experience
How do I get a business user test account?
If your organization doesn't have a dedicated business user test account, contact your LawVu administrator. They can help arrange appropriate access for testing and validation.
How does LawVu govern its use of AI?
LawVu is committed to secure, private and responsible AI. Our AI services run within LawVu's existing Azure environment, and your data is kept separate and isn't used to train public models. To learn more, see Trust Centre: AI Governance | LawVu LegalOS.