Why It Matters
NLP is the umbrella term for most AI that touches legal documents. Older NLP tools needed training for each clause type; LLMs now handle many of the same tasks with far less setup.
Related Terms
- Machine learning
- Software that learns patterns from examples rather than following hand-written rules. It powered legal tech well before generative AI, for example in technology-assisted review.
- LLM (large language model)
- The type of AI model behind ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and most legal AI assistants, trained on very large amounts of text to predict and generate language.
- Clause extraction
- Using AI to find specific clauses and data points in contracts, such as governing law, renewal dates and liability caps, and turn them into structured fields.
General information, not legal advice. Part of the Legal Tech Glossary, 173 terms in plain English.