Checkbox, a legal front door for corporates, has launched First Pass, marking a move into contract review – and which builds upon its platform for inhouse teams. (See AL interview with Evan Wong, CEO, below.)
The company said that this new capability will entail a ‘context-aware AI agent that reviews contracts, invoices, and incoming legal requests, to reduce routine work and route what needs attention to the right place’.
They added that the idea is that all the data embedded in contracts and other text-based inputs into a legal team can be harnessed by First Pass, which moves that intelligence ‘upstream’.
One nifty feature that AL noted is that as requests are analysed by the AI, matters can be sent to ‘whoever has the lightest workload’ on the legal team.
In terms of the details of how it will operate, they explained:
- ‘For contracts, workflows can run incoming contracts against a team’s playbook or gold-standard template, returning a risk score, summary, and review before the contract reaches a lawyer.
- While for invoices, Checkbox can check LEDES invoices for mathematical and formatting errors, then review line items against billing guidelines and return a corrected invoice and summary report.’
It’s worth adding that in January this year they raised a Series A round of $23m. At that time, James Han, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Checkbox, commented: ‘The Series A funding will fuel Checkbox’s vision to build a system of intelligence for legal work, turning everyday requests into institutional expertise. This institutional expertise can then be leveraged by AI to help teams move faster, deliver more consistent work, and reduce dependency on outside counsel.’
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And now the AL interview with CEO, Evan Wong.
Contract review for Checkbox is totally new?
Yes, First Pass is the first time Checkbox is doing substantive AI review of contract content – scoring it against your own playbook – rather than just routing and tracking it.We’re not trying to replace anyone’s CLM. First Pass is exactly what it sounds like – the first read. By the time a contract reaches the tools legal teams already run, the routine work is done and the real questions are flagged.
Why now?
Legal teams are buried in contract, invoice, and request volume. CLM and e-billing platforms manage work once it’s already in the system – they don’t filter or deflect it before it reaches a lawyer. Nobody was working on the moment it arrived – partly because it’s unglamorous, partly because until recently you couldn’t automate a first read without creating more work than it saved. Both of those changed. First Pass moves that intelligence upstream.
What LLMs are you using?
We use a mix of proprietary and third-party models.
How is Checkbox doing now?
We support 100+ legal teams, including PepsiCo, BILL, and SAP. We raised a $23M Series A in Jan 2026 led by Touring Capital. We have 100 employees with a presence in Sydney and New York.
How do you see the market changing?
Legal departments face growing request volume from across the business, and previous platforms were built to manage work once it enters their systems, not to determine what can be resolved or deflected before it reaches legal departments. That gap will be the biggest market opportunity over the next 5 years, and one Checkbox will continue to lead.
Thanks Evan and congrats.
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Legal Innovators Conferences London and New York this November
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Legal Innovators UK – London, Nov 4 and 5
And,
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See you at Legal Innovators New York – Nov 17 and 18 – join us at the intersection of legal AI and the business of law in New York for the most important legal innovation event of the year! Day One: law firms, Day Two: inhouse. Top speakers from across the legal AI world, leading law firms, and major companies. All for one purpose: to describe and explore the frontier of legal technology. See you there!
UK and New York event links are here:
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