Legal teams handle complex documents that go through multiple rounds of revision and demand meticulous attention to detail. A version control system enables accurate tracking for edits, with timestamps and authors. Whilst Microsoft Word supports features like Track Changes, it falls short of providing a complete version control system because edits can be overwritten, history is not immutable, and it lacks the granularity and branching that can provide deep insight.
Traditionally, the main advantage of a version control system is instant rollback to any previous draft, eliminating confusion about the most up-to-date version and providing a reliable audit trail for regulatory compliance. With the rise of AI-driven analytics, version control has also become an important source of structured data. Version control systems calculate the difference between versions as "diffs". Diffs track changes and timestamps, but also additional information like authorship and comments. Diffs are perfect for LLMs because they provide highly relevant background information for a document in a very concise format.
With version control, it is possible to identify how the overall structure of a document has shifted over time, and flag specific clauses for increased risk. These signals become stronger when there is an extensive drafting history, and would often be impossible to obtain without a comprehensive version control system.
Therefore, the role of a version control system has changed from enabling simple record-keeping, to facilitating data-powered analysis. Lawyers can more meaningfully interact with their documents, to find verifiable patterns using LLMs. This enables new avenues for lawyers to create an advantage within high-stakes transactional law, and is part of the technological promise that is leading major firms to adopt AI on a large scale.