Definely

What it is

Definely is a Word-native suite for navigating, reviewing, and proofing complex contracts without leaving the document. It was founded in London in 2020 by two former Freshfields banking and finance lawyers, Nnamdi Emelifeonwu and Feargus MacDaeid. The origin is unusual and worth knowing: MacDaeid is registered blind, and the first feature — pull any defined term or cross-reference into a side panel without scrolling away from the clause you’re in — was built to solve his own navigation problem. It turned out every lawyer needed it. The company calls this “design for the edge,” and it explains why Definely feels less like a platform you migrate to and more like a layer that makes the document you already have easier to work in.

It raised a $30M Series B in June 2025 led by Revaia, with Clio among the investors, taking total funding to roughly $40M. ARR nearly tripled in 2024, and the US now accounts for about 30% of revenue.

Four surfaces do the work: Draft for navigation and split-screen clause editing with native Word Track Changes; Proof for automated proofreading; Vault for AI drafting and semantic precedent search across your firm’s own document repository; and Cascade, which flags the downstream implications of a single change across clauses, definitions, and schedules. OCR-based PDF review extends the same navigation to non-editable files for diligence.

Why it shows up in Legal Ops stacks

• The work stays in Word. Definely runs as a Microsoft Word add-in on top of documents opened from any DMS. There’s no separate platform to learn and no document leaving the system of record. For transactional and in-house teams whose day is already spent in Word, that removes the context switch a standalone tool imposes — and the adoption friction that kills legal-AI rollouts.
• Proof catches what review misses. It automates the punctuation and style consistency checks, definition and cross-reference integrity checks, and stray-drafting-note sweeps that a partner otherwise does by eye at 11pm. This is the load-bearing capability for firms whose risk is a wrong cross-reference in an executed agreement, not a slow first draft.
• Vault turns precedent into a searchable asset. Semantic search over the firm’s own past work surfaces relevant clauses and definitions inside Word, so drafting a new agreement starts from what the firm has already negotiated rather than a blank page.
• Enterprise governance is in place. SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, and GDPR posture clear the procurement questions DACH and UK firms ask first.

Named users include A&O Shearman, Slaughter and May, DLA Piper, and Dentons, plus in-house teams at BT Group, Deloitte, and P&O Cruises — over 150 firms and legal teams.

Pricing

• Sales-led, no public per-seat number. Definely is quoted per lawyer on an enterprise subscription; there is no published price tier, and unlike most legal-AI platforms it also sells single-seat subscriptions to individual lawyers, so there’s a low-commitment on-ramp a floor-gated platform doesn’t offer.
• Cost-of-adoption is the real differentiator. Because it’s a Word add-in requiring minimal training, the total cost — license plus rollout plus IT overhead — lands well below a standalone platform like Harvey or Legora, which start around a $30K/year floor before counting change-management.
• Get the per-seat figure, the seat minimum, and the renewal-year uplift in writing during procurement.

Best for

• Transactional and in-house lawyers (solo seat up to large firm) who draft and review in Word and want accuracy, navigation, and proofing without migrating to a new platform.
• Firms where adoption risk — not first-draft speed — is the thing that has killed past legal-AI pilots.
• UK/EU and DACH teams where ISO 42001 and GDPR posture are procurement gates.

Alternatives

• Spellbook — pick it when you want generative drafting and first-pass redlines produced in Word, not just navigation and proofing. Spellbook writes clauses; Definely’s core strength is reviewing and navigating what’s already drafted.
• DraftWise — pick it when precedent-grounded drafting from your firm’s negotiated deal history is the primary need and you want generation anchored to that corpus.
• Legora or Harvey — pick a full platform when you need research agents, high-volume tabular review, or M&A diligence at scale and will fund a standalone rollout. Definely is the lighter add-in; these are the heavier systems of work.

Watch-outs

• It’s a review-and-navigate layer first, a generator second. Vault and Cascade add AI, but the original value is making the document a lawyer is already drafting accurate and navigable. Guard: scope your evaluation to the documents your team actually produces — run Proof and Draft on a live deal — and benchmark Vault/Cascade’s generation separately against Spellbook or Legora rather than assuming parity.
• Pricing is opaque. No public per-seat anchor makes budgeting and benchmarking harder. Guard: because it sells to individuals, get a single-seat or small-team quote to establish a per-lawyer baseline before negotiating the enterprise number, and pin the renewal uplift in writing.
• Agentic depth is early. The company is openly “evolving from assistive to autonomous” — the autonomous agents are roadmap, not shipped depth. Guard: buy it for what Draft and Proof do today; pilot any agentic feature on your real workflow before it becomes load-bearing.
• Word-centric by design. If your team drafts in Google Docs or another non-Word surface, the add-in model doesn’t fit. Guard: confirm Word is your drafting environment before committing.