How to prepare a commercial lease review before calling an attorney

Draw the location the business thinks it is leasing

Begin with a plain-language location brief. Record the address, the space the team expects to occupy, the intended business use, the planned opening date, the people approving the commitment, and any assumptions made during site selection. Keep this brief separate from the lease itself so it remains clear which facts came from the business and which came from the document.

Then locate the lease language that appears to describe the premises and permitted use. Attach each note to its source section and to any referenced plan or exhibit. The goal is not to decide what the language means. It is to show counsel exactly where the paper and the operating plan may need to be reconciled.

• Record the expected space, access, storage, parking, and shared areas.
• Name the business activities the location must support.
• Keep broker summaries and email promises labeled as context, not contract language.
• Flag any location detail that cannot be verified in the document set.

Build a source-linked map of money and dates

Create one review table for every amount, calculation, deadline, and notice period the team needs to understand. This may include base rent, additional charges, deposits, improvement allowances, delivery conditions, commencement triggers, the initial term, renewal options, and notice windows. Capture the exact source location beside every entry.

Do not smooth over a formula or fill a missing date from memory. If an amount depends on an exhibit, a future measurement, or another definition, preserve that dependency in the review. An explicit unknown gives counsel and the business owner something concrete to resolve.

• Separate stated dates from dates calculated from another event.
• Record formulas as written before translating them into a budget assumption.
• Link each option or deadline to the notice language that accompanies it.
• Identify the person who can confirm each commercial assumption.

Trace operating duties to the people who would perform them

Next, map the clauses that touch day-to-day operation: repairs, maintenance, utilities, insurance, signage, alterations, access, compliance work, assignment, subletting, casualty, default, and the guaranty if one is included. The useful output is not a verdict on those provisions. It is a list of source-backed obligations and the internal owner who understands the practical impact.

Ask operational questions in concrete terms. Can facilities confirm the described maintenance boundary? Can finance model the recorded payments? Can the opening team verify that the construction schedule matches the business plan? Questions framed this way expose missing context without turning an internal review into legal advice.

• Quote the smallest source span that still preserves context.
• Mark duties whose owner is not yet known.
• Keep a business concern separate from a legal interpretation.
• Route legal meaning and acceptable risk to qualified counsel.

Reconcile the exhibits before summarizing the deal

A lease review can become misleading when the main document is read without its plans, work letter, rules, guaranty, addenda, or referenced schedules. Inventory the full document set and note every cross-reference you cannot follow. If an exhibit is absent or appears inconsistent with the business brief, keep that gap in the review queue.

Only after the set is complete should the team prepare a compact summary. Each summary item should point back to the relevant clause or exhibit, and each discrepancy should identify the business assumption it affects. Counsel can then inspect the source rather than reconstructing the package from scattered attachments.

• List every referenced attachment and whether it is present.
• Keep plan, work-letter, and guaranty questions distinct.
• Do not infer missing exhibit content from a heading or filename.
• Preserve the original files and the version used for the review.

Give counsel a location decision packet

The handoff should answer four questions: what location the business believes it is taking, what the current document set says, where those two pictures do not line up, and which decisions remain open. Include the location brief, document inventory, source-linked money and date table, operating-duty map, prioritized questions, and the owner of each follow-up.

CounselOS can keep extracted clauses tied to the uploaded contract, compare them with the company playbook, capture open questions beside the relevant findings, and export selected items in a review packet. The software organizes the record; the business and its attorney decide what the lease means and what position to take.