Checkbox has launched First Pass, a context-aware AI agent designed to review incoming legal requests, contracts and invoices before they consume lawyer time, helping in-house teams resolve routine work earlier and route more complex matters to the right people.
The launch is part of a broader repositioning of Checkbox as an AI front door for enterprise legal demand. More than 100 enterprise legal teams use the platform, including SAP, PepsiCo and BILL.
First Pass is designed to address a persistent problem inside corporate legal departments: highly trained lawyers often remain the first point of review for work that could potentially be resolved, redirected or automated.
Traditional contract lifecycle management and e-billing systems generally help manage work after it has already entered a legal workflow. Checkbox is attempting to move AI intelligence further upstream, closer to the point where a business user initially raises a request.
The system captures incoming requests, connects them to matters that may already be open and assigns work according to instructions defined by the legal team in plain language.
For example, a department could instruct Checkbox to route the next request to the team member with the lightest workload rather than manually evaluating assignments.
Checkbox said that approach can result in requests arriving at legal already captured, organized and assigned, with some routine matters resolved without requiring lawyer involvement.
First Pass also introduces automated contract review.
Incoming agreements can be compared against a company’s playbook or preferred template before reaching an attorney. The AI can return a risk score, summary and initial review, giving legal teams a more structured starting point rather than requiring lawyers to begin with an unreviewed document.
Invoice review is another use case.
Checkbox can examine LEDES invoices for mathematical and formatting errors, review individual line items against a company’s billing guidelines and return both a corrected invoice and summary report.
That could reduce the amount of manual work required from legal operations and outside counsel management teams while helping organizations enforce billing policies more consistently.
Checkbox said customers using its existing intake and triage layer have reduced the number of nondisclosure agreements requiring legal review by as much as 95%.
The broader strategy is to create a layer between employees requesting legal assistance and the attorneys responsible for providing it.
Instead of treating every incoming question, contract or invoice as a new task requiring immediate human attention, First Pass evaluates the work first and determines what can be handled through established policies and automated workflows.
That model could become increasingly valuable as corporate legal departments face rising demand without equivalent increases in headcount.
Routine contracts, vendor questions, data processing agreements, invoices and internal requests can create large volumes of administrative work that compete with higher-value activities such as advising executives, managing major risks and negotiating strategically important agreements.
Checkbox is positioning AI as a way to separate those two categories earlier in the process.
The company already captures legal requests from the systems employees use every day, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, Salesforce, Jira and web forms.
Its platform then applies no-code workflow automation to repeatable processes including NDAs, data processing agreements and contract approvals.
First Pass adds another intelligence layer by examining the substance of work rather than simply moving requests through predetermined workflows.
That distinction is central to Checkbox’s updated positioning.
The company argues that the most effective legal AI systems should help determine what actually requires a lawyer’s judgment before sending everything into a legal department’s queue.
Hitachi Digital is among the organizations using Checkbox to create a more centralized legal operating model.
The company’s Global Head of Legal Operations and AI Technology Solutions, Jeannine Moran, said Checkbox had already provided a single front door for legal work and routing, while First Pass adds intelligence before a request reaches the legal team.
Hitachi and Checkbox recently won the Best Legal Transformation Project award at the Running Legal Like a Business conference for their work redesigning legal operations.
The enhanced AI agent is available now through early access, with additional capabilities planned for a broader release in the first quarter of 2027.
KEY QUOTES:
“We imagined First Pass around a simple question: how much routine work can AI take off a legal team’s plate? Legal teams shouldn’t have to spend their time filtering routine work that doesn’t need their judgment. First Pass is about putting Legal back in command — giving teams control over what reaches them so they can spend more time counseling the business.”
Evan Wong, CEO and Co-Founder of Checkbox
“With Checkbox, we built an operating model where legal work can enter through a single front door, route through the right workflows, and be captured and tracked. The missing piece has been intelligence on the substance of that work before it reaches legal. First Pass closes that gap — giving the business guidance upfront and giving legal a pre-triaged, pre-informed request rather than a cold submission.”
Jeannine Moran, Global Head of Legal Operations and AI Technology Solutions at Hitachi Digital
