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ProductApril 15, 2026·5 min read

What plain-English redlines actually look like

The first version of CheckMyDoc's redline output was technically accurate and basically useless. We'd return suggestions like:

Section 7.2 should be modified to reduce the notice period from ninety (90) days to thirty (30) days, with a corresponding affirmative reminder obligation imposed upon the Vendor at the sixty (60) day mark prior to renewal.

That's a perfectly fine sentence to find in a counsel-drafted markup. It's a bad sentence to send a founder who needs to send three more emails before they ship dinner. It also doesn't tell the vendor why to agree to the change.

So we restructured every redline as three things. Original. Proposed. Rationale.

Original

The exact text from the contract, with the section reference. We want the counterparty to know we read the actual contract, not a template.

§ 7.2 — "This Agreement shall renew automatically for successive 12-month terms unless either party gives written notice not less than 90 days prior to the end of the then-current term."

Proposed

The replacement language, in clean prose. Not "modify Section 7.2 to read as follows" — just the replacement, with the change marked.

"This Agreement shall renew automatically for successive 12-month terms unless either party gives written notice not less than 30 days prior to the end of the then-current term. The Vendor shall send a written renewal reminder to the Customer not less than 60 days prior to the end of the then-current term."

Rationale

One sentence the vendor will actually accept. Not "this is unfair to the customer" — that's not a counter-argument anyone has ever lost to. Something like: "Aligns with the renewal-notice norm we see in [comparable category] contracts and reduces customer churn from accidental opt-out."

Why this matters

Counsel charges by the hour, and the hours that get billed aren't the ones where they're reading clauses you already understand. They're the ones where they're translating what you want into language the counterparty will accept. CheckMyDoc gives counsel a starting draft for that translation, on every flagged clause, in two minutes.

What this isn't

It's not a substitute for counsel. The redlines we propose are first drafts — good enough to forward, not good enough to sign. The vendor's lawyer will counter-edit ours, and yours will counter-edit theirs, and somewhere in the middle is the contract that actually gets signed. We're trying to shorten the path through that loop, not eliminate it.