Create a practical prompt library for a lawyer handling [PRACTICE AREA] matters in [JURISDICTION]. The intended users are [USER TYPE], and the recurring work includes [WORK TYPES]. Our confidentiality, source, and approval rules are: [CONFIDENTIALITY RULES]. Produce exactly 30 copy-ready prompts, grouped into these sections: matter intake and issue spotting; research planning; document review and comparison; drafting and revision; client communication; discovery or investigations; hearing, deal, or closing preparation; and internal knowledge management. Include 3–5 prompts per section. For every prompt, provide: 1. A short use-case title. 2. The exact prompt in first person, with input placeholders. 3. A one-sentence review instruction identifying what a lawyer must verify. 4. A concise caution where the task can create legal, confidentiality, privilege, citation, or deadline risk. Make each prompt operational. For example, a contract-comparison prompt should require a clause-by-clause change table, allocation of risk, and pinpoint references; a case-law prompt should separate verified authorities from search leads and require jurisdiction, court, date, and citation checking. Include prompts for a chronology, a privilege-review issue list, a redline explanation, a draft client email that distinguishes facts from assumptions, and a research plan before drafting a memo. Do not give legal conclusions, invent authorities, quote cases without supplied source text, calculate deadlines without verified governing rules, or suggest uploading privileged or personal information to an unapproved tool. Assume every output is a first draft for qualified lawyer review. Before answering, check that all 30 prompts ask for a concrete deliverable rather than generic help. Also flag any requested workflow that conflicts with the confidentiality rules. Ask up to 3 clarifying questions only if a required input is missing.
Fill in
| Placeholder | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| [PRACTICE AREA] | Enter the legal specialty or matter type, such as commercial litigation or employment law. | commercial contracts and technology transactions |
| [JURISDICTION] | Enter the governing jurisdiction and court system where relevant. | New York law, with U.S. federal law where applicable |
| [USER TYPE] | Enter who will use the library, such as associates, in-house counsel, or paralegals. | three in-house commercial counsel and two contract managers |
| [WORK TYPES] | List the recurring legal tasks or documents the team handles. | MSA review, vendor negotiations, privacy addenda, renewal notices, and executive summaries |
| [CONFIDENTIALITY RULES] | State approved-tool, redaction, privilege, personal-data, and review requirements. | Use only approved enterprise AI; remove customer personal data; do not upload privileged advice or opposing-party strategy; lawyer approves every external document. |
How to use
- Paste the prompt and replace the practice, jurisdiction, users, workflows, and confidentiality rules.
- Save the resulting prompts in categories that match your matter workflow, not in one undifferentiated list.
- Check that each prompt has a defined output, source boundary, and lawyer-review step.
- Follow up with: “Expand the contract-review section into prompts for MSA, DPA, order form, and SOW review, using a risk-rating scale.”
Variations
Contract Review
Use this when reviewing one agreement rather than building a library.
Review [AGREEMENT TYPE] under [GOVERNING LAW] using only the text I provide. Produce a clause-by-clause table with clause reference, business effect, legal risk, missing information, and proposed negotiation position. Prioritize [PRIORITIES], compare against [PLAYBOOK OR FALLBACK POSITIONS], and separate actual text from assumptions. Do not provide a final legal conclusion or invent missing terms. Flag clauses that require specialist review, including privacy, IP, sanctions, tax, or regulated-industry provisions. Before answering, confirm every finding has a pinpoint reference and identify provisions you could not assess from the supplied text.
Research Plan
Use this before researching an unfamiliar legal issue.
Build a legal research plan for [QUESTION] in [JURISDICTION] as of [DATE]. Give me: the issue framed precisely; controlling and persuasive source hierarchy; search terms and databases to use; likely statutory, regulatory, and case-law branches; facts that could change the answer; and a research log template. Distinguish verified sources I provide from leads to investigate. Do not state a legal conclusion. Before answering, flag jurisdictional gaps and any deadline, procedural-posture, or administrative-exhaustion issues that need confirmation.
Client Update
Use this to turn approved matter notes into a client-facing update.
Draft a client update based only on [APPROVED NOTES] for [CLIENT OR MATTER]. The audience is [AUDIENCE], and the requested tone is [TONE]. Use five sections: current status, what changed, practical implications, decisions or documents needed from the client, and next steps with owners. State dates exactly as provided and label uncertainty rather than filling gaps. Do not give new legal advice, guarantees, or legal conclusions. Before answering, flag every statement that is unsupported by the notes and every sentence that may disclose privileged strategy.
Tips
- Keep a separate approved prompt set for public-source research and for confidential matter work; the input rules are not interchangeable.
- For legal research, require a research plan and source list before asking for analysis, then independently verify every citation and its current status.
- Make document-review prompts require pinpoint section references, because a prose summary without locations is difficult to audit.
- Treat AI-generated deadline calculations as a checklist of issues to verify against the rule, order, service method, and local practice.
FAQ
Can I paste a client contract into ChatGPT or Claude?
Only if your organization has approved that tool and the matter fits its confidentiality and data-handling rules. Remove unnecessary personal data and follow your firm's privilege and retention policies.
Can AI cite cases for me?
It can suggest research leads, but citations, quotations, holding descriptions, and whether an authority remains good law must be verified in authoritative legal sources.
Does this replace a legal memo or review?
No. It creates repeatable first-draft workflows; a qualified lawyer remains responsible for analysis, advice, filing, and client communications.