How Do Lawyers Review Tracked Changes in a Contract Faster?
The draft comes back at 6:00 PM with 200 tracked changes, a dozen comments, and a client call first thing in the morning.
The short answer: Lawyers review tracked changes faster when they verify the markup first and hide formatting noise. Then they sort substantive edits from drafting edits and work through comments alongside the changes they explain. The biggest time savings come from tools inside Microsoft Word that compare versions accurately and recommend a response to each change, with a reason.
What Are Tracked Changes, and Why Aren’t They Enough on Their Own?
Tracked changes are Microsoft Word’s record of edits made to a document while Track Changes is turned on. They show insertions, deletions, moves, and formatting edits, along with who made each one.
The limitation is in that definition. Edits made with tracking off won’t appear, and neither will changes the counterparty accepted before sending. Language pasted in from another draft can also slip past. So before reviewing a single change, compare the version you sent against the version you received. The comparison shows everything that changed, marked or not.
How reliable that comparison is matters more than most lawyers realize. Our guide to how AI reviews a counterparty redline explains why.
How Do You Separate Substantive Edits From Formatting Changes?
Formatting edits can make up a large share of a redline and almost none of its risk. Clearing them out first shrinks the review to the changes that need judgment.
In Word, you can isolate formatting in a few clicks:
- Go to Review > Show Markup and clear Formatting, so only content changes remain visible
- Review the content changes
- Turn Formatting back on, then show only formatting changes and confirm them quickly
- Use Accept > Accept All Changes Shown to clear the confirmed set in one step
Then sort what’s left into tiers:
| Tier | What it includes | How to handle it |
|---|---|---|
| Substantive | Economics, liability caps, indemnities, termination rights, and governing law | Review first, against the client’s position |
| Definitional | Defined terms, cross-references, and schedules | Trace every use of the term, since a small edit can ripple |
| Drafting | Typos, style, numbering, and conforming edits | Confirm quickly and move on |
How Should You Handle Comments Alongside Tracked Changes?
A comment often explains the change next to it, and sometimes it carries the counterparty’s real position. Reviewing changes first and comments later splits one decision into two.
A faster habit is to work clause by clause:
- Read the change and its comment together
- Decide your response to both at once
- Reply in the comment thread when the answer needs explaining
- Mark the comment resolved only when your response is in the draft
How Do You Review a Contract After Multiple Rounds of Changes?
On a long negotiation, the hardest change to catch is one that comes back. A term you rejected in round two can quietly return in round six, and a two-version comparison won’t flag it as a repeat.
Three habits keep multiple rounds under control:
- Compare against more than the last draft: a one-to-many comparison checks the new version against several earlier ones at once
- Keep a running issues list: log each open point, each side’s position, and the round it was raised, so a reintroduced term stands out
- Name versions consistently: clear version labels make every comparison faster to set up and easier to trust
What If the Counterparty Sends a PDF?
Counterparties don’t always return an editable draft. When a PDF comes back, converting it to Word by hand and eyeballing the differences is slow and error-prone. A legal comparison tool can compare a Word document directly against a PDF and produce a redline, so you see what changed without retyping anything.
How Does Lito Speed Up Tracked Changes Review in Word?
The habits above make a review more reliable. On a 200-change redline under deadline, they’re also where the hours go. That’s the work Litera built Lito to help with.
Litera has spent 30 years building comparison technology for legal work, and its comparison engine runs across roughly 67% of the legal market. In an internal benchmark against leading general-purpose large language models (LLMs), Litera Compare delivered more accurate results and broader coverage of legal document elements. It also held precision as documents grew longer. The same engine compares a Word document directly against a PDF, so a returned PDF doesn’t slow the review down.
Lito, Litera’s award-winning Legal AI agent, builds on that foundation to manage changes inside Word:
- Assesses every tracked change and every comment in the counterparty’s version
- Recommends whether to accept, reject, or revise each change, and explains its reasoning
- Proposes revised language when a change calls for it, inserted as a tracked change only when the lawyer chooses
- Works inside Word, where the review already happens, with no new platform
Because Lito reasons over a verifiable redline, lawyers check the recommendation, not whether the document changed the way the tool said it did. The lawyer still makes every call. An AI recommendation can be wrong, and proposed revisions are AI-generated, so lawyers review them the way they’d review a colleague’s markup. That’s why each recommendation shows its reasoning and nothing changes in the document without the lawyer acting.
The return goes beyond a faster evening:
- Associates see the reasoning behind each call as they work, so negotiation judgment builds sooner
- Partners spend less time re-checking and more time advising the client
- The firm responds to counterparties more consistently on every matter, which clients notice when they decide who handles their next deal
Read Every Change. Know Which Ones Matter.
See how Lito helps lawyers move through every tracked change and comment with a reason behind each recommendation. Explore the platform, or talk to your Litera team about trying it on one of your own redlines.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I See Only Substantive Changes in Word?
Go to Review > Show Markup and clear Formatting. Word then displays only content changes, so you can review those first and confirm formatting edits separately.
Can I Accept All Formatting Changes at Once?
Yes. Filter Show Markup to display only formatting changes, then choose Accept > Accept All Changes Shown. Content changes stay untouched.
How Do I Compare a Word Document to a PDF?
Use a legal comparison tool that supports cross-format comparison. It produces a redline between the two files without converting or retyping either one.
Can AI Review Tracked Changes in a Contract?
Yes. AI can assess each tracked change and comment and recommend a response. That review is only as reliable as the comparison underneath it, and the lawyer should make every final call.
Does Lito Change My Document Automatically?
No. Lito recommends and explains, and any revised language enters the document as a tracked change only when the lawyer chooses to insert it.
