Legal playbook · AI Employee: Lex

Legal Policy & Compliance Q&A

Fewer generic legal escalations

Install this playbookBack to marketplace
The problem

Legal + compliance policy questions from employees are endless and often the same: "can I accept this vendor gift," "is this permissible under our anti-bribery policy," "what's our stance on ex-employees soliciting our team," "can I sign this letter of intent." Every answer requires legal judgment, but most questions are actually answered by existing policy. Legal spends hours re-explaining policies employees never read; employees stall on decisions waiting for legal availability.

At a glance
Trigger
Chat
Approvals
None
What it does
Read-only
Systems
Legal + compliance KB
How it feels in production

An hour-by-hour walkthrough.

Sarah asks Lex: "a vendor sent us a $200 gift basket during the deal negotiation. Am I allowed to accept it?" Lex looks up the anti-bribery + gift policy (Corporate Policy Section 8.4): "Per Corporate Policy 8.4 (Anti-Bribery + Gift Policy): gifts from vendors are limited to $75 per instance and $250 aggregate per calendar year per vendor. A $200 gift basket exceeds the per-instance limit. Options per policy: 1. Politely decline and return 2. Accept for the team to share (not personal), with the value reported to compliance 3. If accepted personally, either return or donate to charity with compliance notification Since you're in an active negotiation, best practice is decline (Option 1) — even permissible gifts during active negotiation can create appearance issues. I've drafted a polite decline message you can send to the vendor. Would you like it?" Sarah accepts the drafted message. Lex sends it, logs the interaction in the compliance record for policy-tracking purposes. Same pattern for any policy question: employment (moonlighting, non-compete interpretation), IP (open source contribution), business conduct (customer entertainment, political contributions). Grounded in actual policies with clear disclaimer that Lex is informational, not personalized legal advice.
How it works

Step by step.

  1. 01

    Recognize policy / compliance question

    Question intent classification: gifts / entertainment, IP contributions, moonlighting, competitive activities, personal-professional boundaries.

    Reasoning · Policy topic classifier
  2. 02

    Look up applicable policy with grounded citation

    Policy document retrieval + specific section citation. Never paraphrases policy language; quotes verbatim.

    Policy library · Retrieval
  3. 03

    Present options + best-practice guidance

    Policy-permitted options laid out with best-practice recommendation. Best practice may be more conservative than minimum policy compliance.

    Reasoning · Best-practice library
  4. 04

    Draft communication if applicable

    For decline messages, disclosure forms, vendor communications: pre-draft with employee edit + send.

    Templates · Email · Communication drafts
  5. 05

    Log for compliance record + trend

    Interaction logged for compliance audit + trend detection. Repeated questions indicate policy clarity gaps.

    Compliance record · Analytics · Policy iteration
Systems and wiring

What you connect to make this run.

Policy library · Compliance documentation

read

Source of truth for all corporate policies. Version-controlled; historical policy for retrospective questions.

Slack · Teams · Web UI

read+write

Primary Q&A surface. Confidential per user; not visible to peers or manager.

Compliance record

read+write

Interaction logging for compliance evidence. Auditor-referenceable record of who was told what.

Legal escalation queue

read+write

Complex questions beyond policy scope escalate to legal. Simple questions handled by grounded lookup.

What changes

Before and after, honestly.

Time to answer policy questions
Before
1-5 business days
After
Under 30 seconds
Legal hours per week on policy questions
Before
10-25 hours
After
1-3 hours
Employee-reported policy compliance confidence
Before
3.2-3.8 / 5
After
4.5-4.8 / 5
Compliance violations from ignorance
Before
5-15 per year
After
Under 2 per year
Related

Playbooks that pair with this one.

Legal

IP Assignment for New Hires

IP-related policy questions grounded in the same PIIA baseline.

HR

HR Policy & Benefits Q&A

Same Q&A pattern for HR policy questions; different policy source.

Finance

T&E Policy Q&A

Same pattern for T&E policy questions.

Frequently asked

Answers about this playbook.

When does Lex refuse to answer and escalate to legal?

Complex judgment calls, novel scenarios, questions where policy is silent, or questions with material personal or business consequence. Explicit escalation with context bundled.

How does it handle policy questions in restricted jurisdictions (e.g., competitor employment)?

Jurisdictional scope applied. Non-compete enforceability varies by jurisdiction; Lex surfaces the applicable rules for the employee's jurisdiction.

Can Lex give tax or personal-legal advice?

Never. Refers to qualified professionals. Company policies discussed; personal application to individual circumstance stays with the individual's advisor.

What about anonymous whistleblower or ethics concerns?

Distinct escalation path to compliance / ethics hotline. Lex doesn't handle these; routes with proper anonymity to the right resource.

How does it interact with corporate training on these policies?

Complementary. Training establishes baseline; Lex handles the day-to-day applied questions after training. Common Q patterns feed training curriculum updates.

See it run on your data.

Free plan, no credit card. Connect the systems this playbook needs and run it against a past event first.

Book a demoMore Legal playbooks