Microsoft Word (Legal Drafting)
Word processing for the precision demands of legal document drafting and review.
What it is
About Microsoft Word (Legal Drafting)
Microsoft Word remains the primary document production environment in legal practice globally, used for drafting, redlining, and finalising contracts, pleadings, deeds, and legal correspondence. In legal contexts, Word is used far beyond its basic functionality — lawyers rely on styles and heading hierarchies for automatic numbering of clauses (critical for cross-referencing in complex agreements), track changes for collaborative redlining between parties' solicitors, compare document (comparing two versions to identify all changes), and metadata scrubbing tools to remove revision history and author information before serving documents on opponents. Legal drafting in Word requires precision habits that are distinct from general word processing: never using the spacebar for indentation (use tab stops or paragraph indentation), understanding that automatic numbering systems can break unexpectedly when text is pasted between documents, and always reviewing the metadata panel before emailing a document externally. Legal technology tools like Litera (formerly Workshare) and DocuTools add Word plug-ins that enhance redlining, metadata cleaning, and comparison functionality specifically for legal workflows.
What you can do with it
Capabilities
Draft a commercial agreement using Word styles to automatically generate and maintain clause numbering.
Redline a counterparty's draft using Track Changes and respond with a clean or marked-up version.
Use the Compare Documents function to produce a comprehensive redline between any two Word document versions.
Scrub document metadata (author names, revision history, comments) before serving on an opposing party.
Build a cross-reference from a defined term to every clause where it appears, updating automatically when clause numbers change.
How to learn it
Learning Resources
Microsoft Support legal document templates and tutorials at support.microsoft.com — Word styles and track changes guides
Law Society practice management guidance at lawsociety.org.uk — covers document management and professional obligations
Litera (litera.com) and DocuTools free webinars — focused on legal-specific Word workflows and redlining best practice
On-the-job: most law firms provide Word legal training as part of trainee solicitor induction
Pro Tip
Accept all tracked changes before you Compare Documents — comparing a document that still contains tracked changes produces a wildly inflated redline that shows every change that was ever proposed, not just the changes between your last clean version and the current document.
Skills that use this tool
Roles that use this tool