Tool Gate · How it works
How the Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate gate works
How the Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate grades a contract: six weighted clauses and a high-severity clause gate where uncapped liability or a full pre-existing-IP grab forces ESCALATE TO COUNSEL — which is how a clean-looking 76 still reads ESCALATE TO COUNSEL.
How the gate works
This tool grades an inbound contract or SOW against the deal-breaker clauses. Each control is marked from your own evidence and weighted into a 0–100 score — and then the score is run past a gate that can only make the verdict worse.
The 6 weighted controls
| Signal | Weight |
|---|---|
| Limitation of liability | 24 |
| IP assignment / ownership | 22 |
| Indemnification scope | 18 |
| Auto-renewal & termination | 16 |
| Payment terms | 12 |
| Scope & deliverable clarity | 8 |
| Total | 100 |
The verdict bands
No monetary liability cap, or a full assignment of identified pre-existing intellectual property, is treated by this instrument as a high-severity risk-allocation issue requiring counsel review. It forces ESCALATE TO COUNSEL regardless of the score. Narrowing the gate-triggering clause clears the counsel-escalation gate. The final result then follows the contract’s score-derived band.
In the worked sample it scores 76 out of 100 and still reads ESCALATE TO COUNSEL — Every other clause is clean, but liability is uncapped — a deal-breaker — so the contract reads ESCALATE TO COUNSEL even though the six-clause math lands at 76 (the NEGOTIATE / REVIEW band on the score alone). Priority control on this sample: Limitation of liability — cap it before anything else. No monetary liability cap, or a full assignment of identified pre-existing intellectual property, is treated by this instrument as a high-severity risk-allocation issue requiring counsel review.
Common questions
Can something score well on the Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate and still fail?
Yes. The weighted score is run past a worsen-only gate — the High-severity clause gate — that can only make the verdict worse. In the worked sample it scores 76 out of 100 and still reads ESCALATE TO COUNSEL, because every other clause is clean, but liability is uncapped — a deal-breaker — so the contract reads ESCALATE TO COUNSEL even though the six-clause math lands at 76 (the NEGOTIATE / REVIEW band on the score alone).
What is a worsen-only gate?
A rule that can only lower a verdict, never raise it. One gate-triggering gap overrides an otherwise-good score, because a single gate-triggering gap shouldn't hide behind a high average. Where something is short, the priority control row names it — here, "Limitation of liability — cap it before anything else. No monetary liability cap, or a full assignment of identified pre-existing intellectual property, is treated by this instrument as a high-severity risk-allocation issue requiring counsel review.".
Grades the document's risk surface from your marks, not your legal rights. Not legal advice.
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<iframe src="https://redhub.ai/visuals/tool/inbound-contract-sow-risk-gate.html" title="How the Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate gate works — RedHub AI" width="760" height="1665" loading="lazy" style="border:0;width:100%;max-width:760px"></iframe>
<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif"><a href="https://redhub.ai/visuals/tool/inbound-contract-sow-risk-gate">How the Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate gate works</a> — by <a href="https://redhub.ai">RedHub AI</a>, the AI that tells you when to doubt it.</p>Image + link — a static picture for any blog
<a href="https://redhub.ai/visuals/tool/inbound-contract-sow-risk-gate"><img src="https://redhub.ai/visuals/tool/inbound-contract-sow-risk-gate-share.png" alt="Diagram of the Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate: six weighted clauses, a high-severity clause gate, and a sample scoring 76 that still reads ESCALATE TO COUNSEL." width="760" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:16px"></a>
<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif"><a href="https://redhub.ai">RedHub AI</a> — the AI that tells you when to doubt it.</p>
This is how Inbound Contract & SOW Risk Gate works. More diagrams in the Visual Field Guide.