Drop a contract, get answers. lawclaw rips through PDFs, spots risky clauses, diffs redlines, checks citations, and searches thousands of discovery docs—locally, so nothing leaves your machine. Built

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name: lawclaw description: Drop a contract, get answers. lawclaw rips through PDFs, spots risky clauses, diffs redlines, checks citations, and searches thousands of discovery docs—locally, so nothing leaves your machine. Built for attorneys and paralegals who bill by the hour and can't waste one. homepage: https://github.com/legal-tools/lawclaw metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"⚖️","requires":{"bins":["pdftotext","diff","grep","pandoc"]},"install":[{"id":"brew-poppler","kind":"brew","formula":"poppler","bins":["pdftotext"],"label":"Install pdftotext (brew)"},{"id":"brew-pandoc","kind":"brew","formula":"pandoc","bins":["pandoc"],"label":"Install pandoc (brew)"}]}}

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lawclaw

Drop a contract, get answers.

lawclaw tears through legal documents the way you wish your associates would—fast, thorough, and without missing the indemnification clause buried on page 47. It extracts text from PDFs, flags key clauses, generates redline comparisons, validates citations, and searches entire discovery sets for the one sentence that wins your case.

Everything runs locally on your machine. No uploads, no third-party servers, no risk to attorney-client privilege. Just you, your terminal, and a very sharp claw.

Who it's for: Attorneys, paralegals, and legal ops teams doing contract review, litigation support, due diligence, e-discovery, or brief-writing.

What it replaces: Hours of Ctrl+F across dozens of PDFs.

Core Capabilities

Document Analysis

Extract text from legal PDFs: pdftotext

Search for specific clauses: grep -i "indemnification\|liability\|warranty" contract.txt

Word count for billing: wc -w document.txt

Extract metadata: pdfinfo

Contract Clause Extraction Use grep with regex to find common clauses:

Indemnification: grep -i "indemnif\|hold harmless" contract.txt

Termination: grep -i "terminat\|cancellation" contract.txt -A 3

Confidentiality: grep -i "confidential\|proprietary\|NDA" contract.txt -A 3

Force majeure: grep -i "force majeure\|act of god" contract.txt -A 3

Jurisdiction: grep -i "jurisdiction\|venue\|governing law" contract.txt -A 2

Arbitration: grep -i "arbitration\|dispute resolution" contract.txt -A 3

Non-compete: grep -i "non-compete\|noncompete\|restrictive covenant" contract.txt -A 3

Assignment: grep -i "assign\|transfer\|delegate" contract.txt -A 2

Redline / Comparison

Compare two versions: diff -u original.txt revised.txt > redline.diff

Side-by-side view: diff -y original.txt revised.txt | less

Word-level diff: wdiff original.txt revised.txt > changes.txt

Convert Word to text first: pandoc contract.docx -t plain -o contract.txt

Citation and Reference Checking

Find case citations: grep -E "[0-9]+ [A-Z]\.[A-Za-z0-9.]+ [0-9]+" brief.txt

Find U.S. Code refs: grep -E "[0-9]+ U\.S\.C\. § [0-9]+" document.txt

Find CFR refs: grep -E "[0-9]+ C\.F\.R\. § [0-9]+" document.txt

Extract footnotes: grep -E "\[[0-9]+\]" brief.txt

Find Bluebook short cites: grep -E "[A-Z][a-z]+, [0-9]+ [A-Z]\." brief.txt

Document Organization

Find specific file types: find . -name "*.pdf" -type f

Search within discovery docs: grep -r "key term" ./discovery/

List recent modifications: find . -name "*.pdf" -mtime -7 -ls

Batch rename exhibits: for f in *.pdf; do mv "$f" "Exhibit_${f}"; done

Discovery Support

Count pages in PDF: pdfinfo document.pdf | grep Pages

Batch convert PDFs: for f in *.pdf; do pdftotext "$f" "${f%.pdf}.txt"; done

Create production log: ls -lh *.pdf > production_log.txt

Search Bates numbers: grep -r "PROD[0-9]\{6\}" ./documents/

Due Diligence

Scan for key terms: grep -i "material adverse\|intellectual property\|pending litigation" diligence/*.txt

Extract dates: grep -E "[0-9]{1,2}/[0-9]{1,2}/[0-9]{4}" contract.txt

Find monetary amounts: grep -E "\$[0-9,]+(\.[0-9]{2})?" agreement.txt

Identify parties: grep -E "WHEREAS|Party|Seller|Buyer|Lessor|Lessee" contract.txt

Deposition / Transcript Analysis

Search testimony: grep -i "Q\." deposition.txt | grep -i "keyword"

Extract witness answers: grep "A\." deposition.txt -A 2

Count pages/lines: wc -l transcript.txt

Privilege Log Support

Generate file list: find ./documents -type f -exec ls -lh {} \; > privilege_log.csv

Search for privileged terms: grep -ri "attorney-client\|work product" ./emails/

Tag privileged docs: grep -rli "attorney-client" ./emails/ > privileged_files.txt

Common Workflows

Contract Review Checklist 1. Extract text: pdftotext contract.pdf contract.txt 2. Scan key clauses: - grep -i "limitation of liability" contract.txt - grep -i "indemnification" contract.txt - grep -i "termination" contract.txt - grep -i "confidentiality" contract.txt - grep -i "governing law" contract.txt 3. Extract monetary terms: grep -E "\$[0-9,]+" contract.txt 4. Flag deadlines: grep -i "within [0-9]+ days\|business days\|calendar days" contract.txt

Redline Workflow 1. Convert both versions: pandoc original.docx -t plain -o original.txt && pandoc revised.docx -t plain -o revised.txt 2. Generate diff: diff -u original.txt revised.txt > changes.diff 3. Side-by-side: diff -y original.txt revised.txt | less

Discovery Review 1. Extract all PDFs: for pdf in discovery/*.pdf; do pdftotext "$pdf" "${pdf%.pdf}.txt"; done 2. Search across all docs: grep -ri "responsive term" discovery/*.txt 3. Generate document index: ls -lh discovery/*.pdf > document_index.txt

Due Diligence Package Review 1. Extract all docs: find diligence/ -name "*.pdf" -exec pdftotext {} \; 2. Search for red flags: grep -ri "litigation\|breach\|default\|bankruptcy" diligence/*.txt 3. Extract unique dates: grep -Eroh "[0-9]{1,2}/[0-9]{1,2}/[0-9]{4}" diligence/*.txt | sort -u

Brief / Motion Citation Check 1. Extract citations: grep -E "[0-9]+ [A-Z]\.[A-Za-z0-9.]+ [0-9]+" brief.txt 2. Cross-reference ToA: diff <(grep -oE "[0-9]+ [A-Z]\.\S+ [0-9]+" brief.txt | sort -u) <(sort toa.txt)

Notes

All processing runs locally—no cloud uploads—so client confidentiality is preserved

Convert proprietary formats (DOCX, DOC) to plain text via pandoc before analysis

Use wdiff for word-level comparison: install via brew install wdiff

Combine with gog skill for Google Workspace integration (Drive, Gmail, Sheets)

Confirm with supervising attorney before automated batch operations on case files

For OCR on scanned PDFs, install tesseract: brew install tesseract

Security & Ethics Reminders

Verify all OCR-extracted text for accuracy before relying on it in filings

Maintain privilege logs when processing communications

Use redaction tools for PII before document production

Comply with court e-discovery orders, ESI protocols, and local rules

Keep audit trails of all document processing for chain-of-custody challenges

Never transmit client data to external services without written consent

All processing runs locally—no cloud uploads—so client confidentiality is preserved

Convert proprietary formats (DOCX, DOC) to plain text via pandoc before analysis

Use wdiff for word-level comparison: install via brew install wdiff

Combine with gog skill for Google Workspace integration (Drive, Gmail, Sheets)

Confirm with supervising attorney before automated batch operations on case files

For OCR on scanned PDFs, install tesseract: brew install tesseract