Gavel vs Law Insider: how they compare in 2026
Gavel and Law Insider both sell AI contract drafting and review inside Microsoft Word, priced openly per user. Gavel Exec redlines against a firm's precedent and playbooks, and Gavel was acquired by Relativity in June 2026. Law Insider's SimpleAI reviews against playbooks and benchmarks language against its public contract database. Gavel sits in the top two bands on thirteen of fifteen axes and Law Insider on eleven of fifteen, identical on ten. Gavel's lead is in how it shows its work. It describes a search across a firm's precedent, EDGAR and government sources, names customers such as MIA Contract Lawyers, and states a SOC 2 Type I attestation for Gavel Exec. Law Insider's counterweight is its contract. Its terms bar training on customer content by it or its AI providers, where Gavel's bar sits on a security page. It also gives an uncapped defense against intellectual property claims and a 72 hour breach notice, while Gavel caps its liability at the greater of $100 or a year's fees.
At a glance
All 15 axes, side by side
The same grid applied to every vendor in the index, graded from public sources. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
AI Centrality
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
The models are the product for one of the two lines and optional for the other, which on a company record is the B band. Gavel Exec is AI-native: review, redlining against playbooks, drafting, market benchmarking and document chat are all model output. Gavel Workflows is rules-based document automation with conditional logic, and the vendor's security page says its AI features, including AI onboarding for Workflows, are entirely optional and that many customers use the automation without enabling AI. Homepage, Gavel Exec page and security page read 18 September 2026.
The AI features are the product being sold, on top of a contract and clause database that works without them. SimpleAI reviews contracts in Word against playbooks, flags missing clauses and risks, proposes redlines and alternative language, compares documents and answers questions through chat, and the web AI Assistant drafts contracts and clauses. The public contract database, clause search and dictionary that Law Insider was built on remain usable without any model. Verified 22 September 2026.
Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
Grounding is described with a method, short of any measured accuracy, which is the B band. R15 shapes the row: Gavel Exec works on contracts rather than case law, so the risk is a wrong redline or a misstated market position rather than fabricated authority. The vendor's AI information page for Gavel Exec describes a hybrid of semantic and full-text search across internal precedent, uploaded matter files, EDGAR, government sources and the open web, and a three-layer analysis of exact match, conceptual similarity and source verification; the product page promises clear, traceable explanations so users can validate outputs. The one figure published, that Gavel Exec flags five times more issues than manual review, has no stated method or sample and is not credited. Read 18 September 2026.
How AI output ties to sources is described only in general terms. The home page says generated clauses are validated against the company's contract database and that third-party and AI-generated clauses can be benchmarked against the Law Insider Index, and the add-in draws alternative language from the clause database, which one product page puts at 20 million clauses and another at more than 200 million. No description of how the validation works, no linked sources for a given suggestion and no accuracy figures were located, and the terms state that output may be inaccurate or inappropriate. Verified 22 September 2026.
Autonomy and Oversight Model
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
The product proposes and the lawyer disposes, through a real review surface, short of any stated threshold or constraint, which is the B band. Gavel Exec produces suggested redlines and negotiation comments inside Word that the user reviews and revises (product FAQ), answers carry explanations meant for validation, and playbooks are lawyer-editable. The Terms add that beta features may produce incorrect or incomplete output and that users remain solely responsible for reviewing and verifying all results. Nothing states limits on what the product may do unreviewed. R124(2) applied: no categorical limit on a named mode. Read 18 September 2026.
Suggestions are proposed, not applied: in Word the user reviews, accepts or ignores each AI highlight and redline. The Terms of Service put the review duty in writing, making the customer responsible for subjecting output to quality control including human review and verification, and describing output as provided as is. What is not published is any limit on use without review, any threshold for uncertain output, or anything on what happens when a suggestion is wrong. Verified 22 September 2026.
Operational and Outcome Evidence
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
Named customers with thin figures, short of dating and method, which is the B band. The homepage names Martin Algie of MIA Contract Lawyers on Gavel Exec (qualitative) and Jessica Streeter of Streeter Law Firm, whose case study reports an entire estate plan prepared in 30 minutes with Gavel Workflows (a rules-based product, and a single anecdote). Logos include Wilson Sonsini, Ogletree Deakins, Louisiana State Court and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles; the vendor states 2,000-plus law firms and legal teams. No dated before-and-after with a method is published for the AI product. Read 18 September 2026.
Logos and a customer count stand in for evidence. The site reports more than 10,000 customers worldwide and shows logos including the US Army, Humana, SpaceX, Dow, Chubb, the US Air Force, Cloudflare, NYU, Casio, Wix and DuPont. No case study, named user outcome or measured result was located on the home page, the product pages or the about page, checked on 22 September 2026. Verified 22 September 2026.
Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
Substantive written commitments on confidentiality, training and providers, short of privilege and matter-level segregation, which is the B band. The security page states that Gavel does not use customer data, prompts or document content to train any AI models, that AI features store no documents, and that Gavel holds zero data retention agreements with its AI providers, including OpenAI, so provider-side retention is addressed. Each customer runs on its own subdomain with a separate database and file storage, which documents tenant separation. The Privacy Policy says Gavel does not access information entered into workflows or generated documents except on the customer's request. Held off A: privilege and work product are not addressed (the Terms say only that communications with Gavel itself are not privileged), and segregation between matters inside a firm is described only as granular access controls on Projects. Read 18 September 2026.
The published agreement carries real commitments. The Terms of Service, last updated 23 June 2025, state that Law Insider does not use customer content to train AI models and requires its third-party providers not to; the incorporated standard terms bind both parties to confidentiality, require prompt notice before any legally compelled disclosure where permitted, and commit to breach notice within 72 hours; and the data processing terms describe customer data as logically segregated in a multi-tenant system. Short of the full picture: nothing addresses privilege or separation between matters, and the terms send content to third-party AI providers, Microsoft and SimpleDocs for processing while the add-in FAQ says documents are never shared with third parties. The standard terms also allow anonymised, aggregated customer content to be used to improve and develop services. Verified 22 September 2026.
UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
A real position on advice versus tooling, short of the supervision and competence dimension, which is the B band. The Terms of Service (19 August 2025) state that Gavel is not a law firm, gives no legal advice, creates no attorney-client relationship and takes no share of fees, and put users solely in charge of complying with professional conduct rules on unauthorized practice, communications and confidentiality. That matters because Gavel Workflows lets firms sell online legal services and build client-facing tools, so consumers meet the product; the Terms leave the consumer-facing disclosure to the firm. Nothing addresses supervision of AI output, competence or jurisdiction limits. Read 18 September 2026.
A product-scoped no-legal-advice clause with a review duty attached. The Terms of Service state that output, the Word add-in and all other content are not legal advice, that Law Insider does not review information for legal accuracy, draw legal conclusions or apply law to facts, that no attorney-client relationship is created, that it is not a lawyer referral service, and that users needing advice should consult a qualified attorney licensed in an appropriate jurisdiction; they also make the customer responsible for human review and verification of output. Nothing addresses a lawyer's own professional obligations when using the product, and no jurisdiction limits or ethics guidance are named. Verified 22 September 2026.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
Principles without a mechanism, which is the C band. The security page says the AI is built with legal professionals in mind, prioritising security, privacy and control, and that AI is optional; the Gavel Exec information page says the product is trained by practising deal lawyers. No owner, pre-release testing, evaluation or finding about uneven output is published. Read 18 September 2026.
Checked the home page, the add-in product page, the about page, the Terms of Service, the standard terms, the data processing terms and the privacy policy on 22 September 2026. No AI governance framework, accountable owner, testing before release or bias disclosure was located; the AI features clause in the terms warns that output may be inaccurate but describes no oversight of the models themselves. Verified 22 September 2026.
AI Safety and Data Stewardship
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
Most of the ground is covered with specifics, short of a subprocessor list and an incident practice, which is the B band. Retention and deletion: AI features store no documents; zero data retention agreements with AI providers; customers choose whether Workflows data is stored and can delete it immediately; account data is deleted seven days after cancellation (Terms and Privacy Policy). Access control: two-factor authentication, SSO, background checks, minimum-necessary access, and no access to workflow content except on request. Encryption: AES-256 at rest in AWS, TLS in transit. Testing: annual third-party penetration testing and vulnerability assessments. Subprocessors: OpenAI is named among AI providers, with no list. Incident notification to customers is not stated. Read 18 September 2026.
The data processing terms publish most of the ground in reviewable form: hosting on Google Cloud Platform in the US, with the Word add-in run by SimpleDocs on AWS in the US and Ireland; least-privilege access with multifactor authentication and monitored logs; encryption in transit and at rest; annual third-party penetration testing; a documented incident response plan with breach notice without undue delay; a named subprocessor list with advance notice of changes and a right to object; and deletion of customer content on request. The retention period is stated only as long as necessary, and the subprocessor list, which covers marketing, analytics and support tools and SimpleDocs, does not name the AI model provider the product uses. Verified 22 September 2026.
AI Liability and Recourse
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
A standard limitation clause that disclaims the exposure the product creates, which is the C band. The Terms of Service (19 August 2025) provide the platform as is, disclaim any warranty that output is free of inaccuracies or current or complete, disclaim liability for reliance on information on the platform, add a specific disclaimer for beta and preview features that may generate incorrect output, cap aggregate liability at the greater of $100 or the fees paid for the product in the prior twelve months, and require the customer to indemnify Gavel. No vendor indemnity or warranty on output is offered. Read 18 September 2026.
Recourse is real but partial. The standard terms give an uncapped defence against third-party intellectual property infringement claims over the service, a warranty that the service performs substantially to its documentation with repair, replacement or refund as the remedy, and a liability cap of fees paid in the preceding 12 months. AI output is excluded from all of it: the Terms of Service provide it as is and with all faults, with no warranty of accuracy, and place decisions made in reliance on it at the customer's own risk. Disputes go to individual arbitration in Delaware with a one-year limitation period. Verified 22 September 2026.
Practice Systems Integration Depth
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
Real integrations named in first-party material, short of documented depth, which is the B band. Gavel Exec is a native Microsoft Word add-in listed on Microsoft AppSource, where suggested redlines and comments land as tracked changes. Gavel Workflows connects to Clio (from the Lite plan), DocuSign and Stripe (Pro), and Zapier, with API access and integration support on the enterprise tier (pricing page read through the search index). What moves in each direction and what a firm configures is not described on the pages read. Read 18 September 2026.
The integration is Microsoft Word, and it is the main product surface. SimpleAI runs as a Word add-in on Mac and Windows, showing highlights, redlines and alternative language inside the document for the user to accept or ignore, with the web AI Assistant available alongside. No other integration is named, and there is no connection to a document management, contract management or matter system. Verified 22 September 2026.
Deployment Model and Data Residency
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Tenancy and storage residency are published, short of the processing location for the AI, which is the B band. The security page states that each customer has its own subdomain, isolated database and file storage, that data is stored by default in AWS data centres in the United States, and that hosting is offered in the European Union, Canada, Australia or any other AWS region. Where the AI providers process prompts is not stated, and the Terms say the customer consents to processing in the United States, which sits uneasily with the regional hosting offer. Read 18 September 2026.
Cloud only, with the hosting locations stated. The data processing terms say customer data is hosted on Google Cloud Platform in US data centres, that the Word add-in runs on SimpleDocs's AWS infrastructure in the US and Ireland, and that customer data is logically segregated in a multi-tenant architecture. No residency choice is offered, and where AI processing happens is not stated separately from storage. Verified 22 September 2026.
Security Certifications and Trust Center
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
A real, named attestation short of accessible evidence, which is the B band. The security page states that Gavel Exec is SOC 2 Type I certified by a third-party auditor against the security, availability and confidentiality criteria, and that a cybersecurity firm tests the platform annually; hosting sits in AWS data centres with their own certifications. Type I attests design at a point in time, not operation over a period; no date or report route is published beyond scheduling a demo, and the attestation is scoped to Gavel Exec, not Gavel Workflows. Read 18 September 2026.
Badges name standards without reports. Every page carries SOC 2 Type II, TX-RAMP and GDPR compliance badges, and the add-in FAQ calls SimpleAI SOC 2 certified; no auditor, scope, date or report is given. The data processing terms describe annual third-party penetration testing and give customers audit rights. The Terms of Service point to a SimpleDocs trust centre for the Word add-in; it could not be opened on 22 September 2026, so its contents are not reflected here. Verified 22 September 2026.
Model Supply Chain Disclosure
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
A provider is named without the full set, the models or change notice, which is the B band. The security page and Privacy Policy say Gavel holds zero data retention agreements with the AI models it uses, including OpenAI, so one provider is named and the retention position with it is stated; other providers, the models and versions, and where they run are not. The Gavel Exec information page describes the architecture (hybrid semantic and full-text retrieval, precedent-trained). No commitment to notify customers of changes. Read 18 September 2026.
The provider is named in the marketing: the home page says clauses are generated using OpenAI, and the add-in page describes review with Law Insider OpenAI. The Terms of Service say AI features use third-party providers bound not to train on customer content. The specific models, where they run and any notice of model changes are not published, and OpenAI does not appear on the published subprocessor list. Verified 22 September 2026.
Commercial Transparency
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
Real pricing for most of the range, with the top tiers withheld, which is the B band. Gavel Exec is $160 per user per month or $1,740 per user a year, with 1,000 completions a month and 25 free queries per user to start; team pricing for 10 or more seats goes to sales. Gavel Workflows publishes Lite at $83 a month, Standard at $165 and Pro at $290 (annual plans include two months free), with Enterprise on contact (pricing page read through the search index). The vendor offers free onboarding and training. Read 18 September 2026.
Self-serve pricing is published and the enterprise tier is withheld. SimpleAI costs $179 per user per month, or $1,790 per user per year on annual billing, after a seven-day free trial that requires a card and converts automatically unless cancelled; plans can be changed or cancelled at any time, with fees already paid kept. Enterprise pricing is available only through sales. Verified 22 September 2026.
Firm and Practice Coverage
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
Segments and practice areas described with substance, boundaries open, which is the B band. Gavel Exec is aimed at transactional attorneys, in-house counsel and legal teams on commercial contracts, corporate and real estate work; Gavel Workflows lists estate planning, probate, real estate, corporate, family, bankruptcy and employment practice, for solo practices through large firms and legal startups, with jurisdiction-specific court forms. The vendor says it serves legal teams in 23 countries. What the AI does not handle well is not stated. Read 18 September 2026.
The use is clear and wide: contract drafting, review, redlining and comparison for legal teams and business users, in nearly any language, in Word on Mac or Windows. One boundary is stated in the terms: the service must not be used in high-risk environments or to process sensitive personal data unless Law Insider agrees in writing. Firm sizes, work beyond contracts and jurisdictions are not addressed. Verified 22 September 2026.
The 12 legal signals, side by side
Recorded rather than graded. These are the questions a practitioner has to answer before a tool touches a client matter, and the answers are taken from public material only.
Client Data in Training
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
A public policy page states no training on customer content, with no matching term in the agreement. The security page says Gavel does not use customer data, prompts or document content to train any AI models, and that its zero data retention agreements with AI providers, including OpenAI, mean customer data is not used to train their models either. The Terms of Service (19 August 2025) limit Gavel's license over customer content to rendering it for the customer's use and bar use of uploaded templates elsewhere without approval, but contain no express training term; because the security page names training, the value is policy-never rather than purpose-limited (the DocJuris reading).
The Terms of Service, last updated 23 June 2025, state that Law Insider does not use customer content to train artificial intelligence or machine learning models and requires its third-party AI providers not to either. The incorporated standard terms separately allow customer content to be anonymized and aggregated with other customers' data to improve and develop services, which is not framed as model training.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
The customer controls storage and zero is available. The security page says that for AI features Gavel stores no documents, that its AI providers process data only for the request and then delete it under zero data retention agreements, and that customers decide whether Workflows data is stored and can delete it immediately. The Terms and Privacy Policy add that account data is deleted seven days after cancellation, save where law or backups require longer. Gavel Exec Projects keep instructions and referenced files together, which is storage the customer chooses.
The Terms of Service let the customer request deletion of its content, and the data processing terms commit to returning or deleting personal data on request or by the end of the term, keeping it only as long as necessary. No fixed period, no zero-retention setting and no retention terms for the AI providers are stated, and data cannot be exported after the agreement ends unless an order form provides otherwise.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
Separation between customers is documented; walls inside a customer are asserted without detail. The security page states that each customer has its own subdomain, isolated database and separate file storage. Within a firm, the Gavel Exec FAQ describes matter-based Projects with granular access controls and Workspaces that share Projects and Playbooks, but no permission model, roles or enforcement are documented.
Checked the Terms of Service, the standard terms, the data processing terms, the product pages and the privacy policy on 22 September 2026. Customer data is described as logically segregated between customers in a multi-tenant system, but nothing addresses walls or permissions between matters or users within a customer's account.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
The Terms of Service (19 August 2025, section J) reserve Gavel's right to cooperate fully with law enforcement or a court order requiring disclosure of information about anyone posting materials on the platform, with the user waiving claims arising from it, and the Privacy Policy permits disclosure where required by law, legal process or government request. Neither document commits to, or reserves discretion over, notifying the customer.
The standard terms incorporated into the Terms of Service allow confidential information to be disclosed only where required by law, provided the disclosing party is promptly notified where permitted and the receiving party cooperates to minimize the disclosure. The data processing terms add that a public authority's request for personal data will, where legally allowed, be challenged and promptly notified. The privacy policy separately reserves disclosure in response to law enforcement or public authority requests.
Primary Law Corpus Provenance
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
Sources are named without a rights basis. The Gavel Exec information page names the material its search runs across: the customer's own precedent banks and matter files, EDGAR, government sources and the open web, the last used for fact-checking. The market data behind clause benchmarking is not identified, and no license or update cadence is stated for any source.
Checked the home page, the add-in product page and the Terms of Service on 22 September 2026. The product draws on a database of publicly sourced contracts and clauses, with third-party clauses and templates held under their creators' rights; it is a contract corpus, and no body of primary law behind the output is identified.
Good Law Verification
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
Under R15 the question translates poorly to a contract tool: Gavel Exec reviews and drafts agreements rather than citing case law, and Gavel Workflows generates documents from templates. Nothing published says whether statutory or court-form content in the template library is checked for currency or subsequent change. Searched the homepage, Gavel Exec page, security page and AI information pages on 18 September 2026.
Checked the home page, the add-in product page and the Terms of Service on 22 September 2026. The product works on contract language rather than legal authority, and nothing addresses checking authority for subsequent history.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
Answers come with explanations meant for validation, but nothing published describes what Gavel Exec does when a playbook, precedent or source does not support a redline or answer, or any confidence signal. Searched the Gavel Exec page, FAQ and AI information page on 18 September 2026.
Checked the home page, the add-in product page and the Terms of Service on 22 September 2026. No confidence indicator, abstention path or behavior for output the system is unsure of is described; the terms warn only that output may be inaccurate or inappropriate.
Fabricated Citation Record
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
Searched web and trade press reporting on court sanctions for AI-fabricated citations on 18 September 2026 under Gavel, Gavel Exec and the former name Documate. None located. This signal does not record litigation history of any other kind.
Searched the AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin on 22 September 2026 for Law Insider and for SimpleDocs, and no recorded case was returned for either. No court order, opinion or disciplinary record naming the product was located. This is a statement about the public record rather than a finding about the product.
Bar Guidance Alignment
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
Professional responsibility appears in general terms only. The Terms of Service make users solely responsible for complying with rules of professional conduct, including those on unauthorized practice, communications and confidentiality, and prohibit use that violates them. No ethics opinion or bar guidance is named.
The Terms of Service carry a no-legal-advice clause: output and all content are not legal advice, no attorney-client relationship is created, and users needing advice should consult a qualified attorney licensed in an appropriate jurisdiction. No bar or ethics opinion is named on any surface read.
Billing and Fee Posture
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
Time savings are claimed and billing is not addressed, on products used by law firms that bill clients. The homepage says Gavel Workflows turns intake into documents up to 90 percent faster and invites firms to use ready-made templates for less than one billable hour a month; Gavel Exec is sold as getting from first pass to final faster. Workflows also offers tools to package and bill for online legal services, which support flat-fee productised work but say nothing about how AI-assisted work is billed or disclosed.
Checked the home page, the add-in product page and the Terms of Service on 22 September 2026. The marketing claims speed without cost or time figures, and nothing addresses how work done with the product is billed or disclosed to a law firm's clients.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
The material exists behind a sales conversation. OpenAI is the only AI provider named (as one of the providers Gavel uses, so the list is incomplete under R29 test 2), no subprocessor list is published, the Gavel Exec page directs buyers needing security, privacy or vendor details to schedule a demo, and the Terms route customers handling third-party data to a survey to decide whether a Data Processing Addendum is needed.
The data processing terms publish a subprocessor list with each vendor's purpose, data categories and location, name the hosting providers, Google Cloud Platform and AWS, and commit to notice before a new subprocessor gains access, with a right to object. The list covers marketing, analytics, support and SimpleDocs; the AI model provider, which the home page names as OpenAI, does not appear on it.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
No located public material addresses disclosure of AI involvement in the work the products produce. Gavel Exec's suggestions arrive as tracked changes and comments in Word, which shows edits but not that a model proposed them, and Gavel Workflows produces court forms and filings from templates with no statement on disclosure or verification. Searched the homepage, Gavel Exec page, security page and Terms on 18 September 2026.
Checked the home page, the add-in product page and the Terms of Service on 22 September 2026. No record of AI involvement in a document, export of that record or disclosure guidance is described.
The questions both sides leave open
Derived from the records above rather than written, so it cannot favor either vendor. Take these into both conversations and ask each side the same question.
- Good Law Verification
- Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
- Court Disclosure Support
Which one fits
Choose Gavel if
- You want redlines drawn from your own precedent with the sources shown. Gavel Exec searches your precedent banks and matter files, EDGAR, government sources and the open web, and gives traceable explanations with each redline so you can check the reasoning.
- You want data hosted outside the United States. Gavel gives each customer its own subdomain, database and file storage, hosts in AWS in the United States by default, and offers the EU, Canada, Australia or any other AWS region.
- You also automate documents for clients. Gavel Workflows turns intake questionnaires and Word or PDF templates into finished documents, with client portals, court form libraries and tools for selling legal services online, from $83 a month, and its AI is optional.
Choose Law Insider if
- You want the training bar in the contract you sign. Law Insider's terms state that it does not use customer content to train AI models and requires its third party AI providers not to, and its data processing terms publish a subprocessor list with notice before changes.
- You want suggested language checked against what others sign. SimpleAI benchmarks proposed and third party clauses against Law Insider's public contract and clause database through its Law Insider Index score, and offers more than 40 standard playbooks.
- You want stronger recourse than a fee cap. Law Insider's standard terms give an uncapped defense against third party intellectual property claims, a warranty with repair or refund, breach notice within 72 hours, and prompt notice before any compelled disclosure.
In summary
Gavel
Gavel, formerly Documate and acquired by Relativity in June 2026, makes Gavel Exec, AI contract review and drafting for transactional lawyers inside Word and on the web, and Gavel Workflows, no code document automation used in estate planning, family law and real estate. The AI Legal Index grades it in the top two bands on thirteen of fifteen capability axes. Gavel Exec redlines against a firm's precedent and playbooks, benchmarks terms against market data and explains its reasoning. It publishes prices from $160 per user a month for Gavel Exec, offers hosting in several regions, and states zero data retention with OpenAI. As of 18 September 2026 the index located no measured accuracy, full provider list or incident notice commitment.
Law Insider
Law Insider, from Law Insider Inc. of Beaverton, Oregon, operated with SimpleDocs, which acquired it, sells SimpleAI, a Word add in that reviews contracts against playbooks, flags missing clauses and risks, and proposes redlines and alternative language, alongside a web assistant for drafting. Suggested language is benchmarked against its public contract and clause database. The AI Legal Index grades it in the top two bands on eleven of fifteen capability axes. Its terms bar training on customer content by it or its AI providers, and it costs $179 per user a month or $1,790 a year. It reports more than 10,000 customers. As of 22 September 2026 the index located no case study, AI governance position or security report.
Questions buyers ask
Gavel vs Law Insider: which is better for contract review in Word?
The grid places them close: Gavel sits in the top two bands on thirteen of fifteen AI Legal Index capability axes and Law Insider on eleven of fifteen, identical on ten. Gavel publishes more on how its answers are sourced, names customers and states a SOC 2 attestation. Law Insider publishes stronger contract terms on training and liability, and benchmarks against a large contract database. Both publish per user prices.
Does Law Insider train AI on customer contracts?
No, under its terms of service, which state that it does not use customer content to train AI or machine learning models and requires its third party providers not to. Its standard terms separately allow anonymized, aggregated customer content to be used to improve its services. Gavel's security page says it does not train on customer data or prompts, but that statement is not in its terms. Graded by AI Legal Index against 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals, including privilege handling and citation accuracy, from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Who owns Gavel and Law Insider?
Relativity, which is also in this index, acquired Gavel in June 2026 and plans to bring Gavel's Word drafting into RelativityOne; Gavel still sells under its own name and contracts as Documate, Inc. Law Insider's about page announces that SimpleDocs acquired it, and SimpleDocs runs the infrastructure behind the SimpleAI Word add in. Graded by AI Legal Index against 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals, including privilege handling and citation accuracy, from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do Gavel and Law Insider cost?
Gavel Exec costs $160 per user a month or $1,740 a year, with 1,000 AI completions a month, and teams of ten or more get a quote; Gavel Workflows runs from $83 to $290 a month. Law Insider's SimpleAI costs $179 per user a month or $1,790 a year after a seven day card backed trial, with enterprise pricing through sales. Graded by AI Legal Index against 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals, including privilege handling and citation accuracy, from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What do Gavel and Law Insider both leave unpublished?
Which models do the work and how they are governed. Gavel names OpenAI as one provider among several, and Law Insider names OpenAI in marketing but not on its subprocessor list; neither names models or versions. Neither publishes an AI governance framework or bias testing, describes what happens when a suggestion lacks support, or documents walls between matters. Neither warrants AI output. Graded by AI Legal Index against 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals, including privilege handling and citation accuracy, from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Three readings to weigh. Law Insider's subprocessor list does not include OpenAI, which its home page names as the source of its clause generation. Gavel's SOC 2 attestation is Type I, a point in time review of design, and covers Gavel Exec but not Gavel Workflows. Relativity acquired Gavel in June 2026, and SimpleDocs acquired Law Insider; both still sell under their own names. Gavel was verified on 18 September 2026 and Law Insider on 22 September 2026. Neither vendor reviewed this page.
Neither vendor paid for inclusion, placement or a grade, and neither reviewed this page before it published. Everything above comes from public material on the dates shown. How the index grades.