Frequently asked questions
Last updated 2026-10-25 · by Surge Software
What is ContractReviewDesk?
ContractReviewDesk is an AI workspace for Indian law firms and in-house legal teams. It reviews contracts against your playbook, produces Word redlines with tracked changes, runs tabular due diligence, answers questions about your documents, researches Indian statutes and Supreme Court judgments, and checks every citation in a brief.
Is ContractReviewDesk free?
Yes. Every feature is free for every user, with no seat minimum and no card. The only charge is optional Claude fallback AI, passed on at Anthropic's list price from prepaid credit you choose to top up.
What costs money?
Only the Claude fallback AI, used when our own model fails a citation or quote check, and only if your workspace has credit. Credit packs are ₹500, ₹2,000, $10 or $25, and the whole pack becomes credit. Without credit, answers stay on our own model.
Does it give legal advice?
No. ContractReviewDesk is a tool for advocates and legal teams. Every AI answer, finding, stamp figure and filing check is a draft for a qualified lawyer to verify.
How does the citation checker work?
It finds every SCC, AIR, SCR, INSC and SCC OnLine citation, case name, section reference and long quotation in a text and looks each one up in the law corpus. Citations that are not found, case names that do not match the citation, sections that do not exist and quotes that are not word-for-word are blocked and struck out.
What is the good-law check?
When a judgment in the corpus says another case is overruled, the older case is flagged. The checker then warns whenever that case is cited as if it were still good law, for example N.N. Global after In Re: Interplay.
Which law is in the corpus?
Key sections of 21 Central Acts with a section index for each, and 37 landmark Supreme Court judgments as short editorial summaries. Full Supreme Court and High Court judgment texts can be loaded from the public datasets with the ingest tool.
Can I review contracts in Word?
Yes. Download any review as a Word file with real tracked changes, or use the Word add-in task pane to review the open document and apply redlines with Track Changes on. The add-in has to be sideloaded by your IT team.
What is tabular review?
You pick many documents and a set of questions, or a due-diligence checklist for a share purchase, real-estate title or vendor compliance. You get a grid of answers, each with a quote that is checked word-for-word against the document, and a CSV export.
Can I ask questions about my own documents?
Yes. Ask one document or every document in a matter. Answers cite the passages they come from, and quotes must appear word-for-word in your document.
Does it calculate stamp duty?
It gives indicative stamp duty for 12 states with a dated rate table, a calculator and a registration checklist with the relevant Stamp Act and Registration Act sections. Always confirm the rate on the state portal.
What do the court-filing checks cover?
For the Supreme Court, Delhi High Court and a generic High Court profile, it reads a DOCX for page size, margins, font, size, line spacing and page numbers, and checks structure such as index, synopsis and list of dates, prayer, affidavit, annexure numbering and blanks. PDF files get the structure checks only.
Is my data secure?
Documents are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM using a key per workspace. Every action is written to a hash-chained audit log that shows any edit or deletion. SSO with Azure AD, Google Workspace or Okta is supported.
Can we run it on our own server?
Yes. It ships as Docker Compose with Postgres and an optional local AI model, and an air-gapped mode that turns off every external AI call.
Which AI models does it use?
Our own model on the Surge AI server first. Claude is used only as a fallback when our model errors or fails a check, and only for workspaces with at-cost credit. Air-gapped installs never call Claude.
Does it support Indian languages?
Translation and summaries in Indian languages are built but switched off by default. The product works in English today.
Is there an API?
Yes: endpoints to list documents and playbooks, run a review and verify citations, authenticated with workspace API keys created in Settings.
Can it file cases or track court dates?
No. E-filing, eCourts date tracking, time billing and a client portal are not available yet.
How do I add my team?
An admin adds colleagues in Settings as admin, lawyer or viewer. New people get an email with a link to set their password, valid for 7 days.
I forgot my password.
Use Forgot password on the sign-in page. We email a one-time link that works for 30 minutes.
Who makes it?
ContractReviewDesk is made by Surge Software Solutions Private Limited, Bengaluru, India. Contact: [email protected].
Still unsure? Ask the assistant (bottom right) or write to [email protected]. Create a free workspace.