Reviewing documents with Archie

In this article, learn how to use Archie as part of your document review process.

First time hearing about Archie? Learn more in Getting Started with Archie, the Smokeball AI Assistant.

What can Archie do with your documents?

Archie is a powerful document review assistant that can help you do the following:

  • Summarise whole documents or parts of documents
  • Suggest changes to tone and length of documents
  • Compare documents:
    • Find conflicting clauses and/or definitions
    • Identify inconsistencies
    • Check for mismatched or missing details
    • Create a chronological order of events or a timeline
  • Review documents:
    • Identify ambiguities
    • Highlight complex language
    • Find conflicting and/or undefined terms
    • Fix placeholder text
    • Check for missing or non-standard clauses
    • Highlight negotiating points

Asking Archie about a document

  1. Open a matter file in the Smokeball desktop app.
  2. Navigate to the Files section under Matter Details, and right-click on a file or document.
  3. Select Ask Archie about this document.

    To ask Archie about multiple documents, select them using Shift or Ctrl, then right-click and select Ask Archie about these documents.
  4. You will be sent to the Archie tab in the matter. An AI-generated file summary and a preview of the file will appear on the right side of the screen.
  5. Enter your question at the bottom of the window and select Ask Archie. Archie will then generate a response based on your question.

Asking Archie about a document from an existing chat

If an Archie response includes a source to a document in the matter, click on the link to the document at the bottom of the response or the Start a New Chat button to ask a question about it. This will create a new Archie conversation for that document.

Expectations and limitations with Archie for documents

  • When you open Archie for the first time ever, Smokeball will start training Archie on the last 50 matters worked on.
  • Archie will do its best to search for text in your files, but a scanned PDF or image may not always be fully accurate.
  • For best results when asking Archie about an individual document, it should ideally be no longer than 50 pages.
  • When uploading a large number of documents to your matter, we suggest waiting before asking Archie questions to allow time for training.

What Archie cannot do:

  • Extract information from deleted documents
  • Compare documents in separate Smokeball matters
  • Analyse documents over 100MB in size, videos or audio files

Tips and Tricks

You can get creative with how you wish for Archie to display the response.

For example, if you ask Archie “Make me a table of the parties financial and non financial contributions to the marriage”, the response will be presented in a table.

Want the list in bullet points? Ask Archie, “Please give me the list in bullet points”.

Good to Know

  • The document from which Archie is generating answers will always be displayed above the question field.
  • One Archie conversation pertains to one file or document only. Archie's conversations about the matter or the document can be denoted by the matter icon or file icon next to the question in Archie's history.

Smokeball AI disclaimer

Like many AI software programs, Archie is a powerful tool that saves time and effort. However, while an answer may sound correct and read well, it may not be correct. 

It is incredibly important to Trust, but verify. Always read responses from Archie carefully to ensure that they are accurate.

We recommend verifying Archie's responses by checking the links to supporting documents provided at the bottom of the responses. 

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