Your first AI wins: 5 everyday tasks

When you finish, you can use AI for five routine tasks with strong prompts and a clear check for each.

Ground rules for practice

Use fictional or fully de-identified facts while you practice. Use only tools your firm or organization has approved for client information. A strong legal prompt names your jurisdiction, your role, the task, the format and what the tool must not do. “Do not cite cases” and “mark missing facts” are two of the most useful limits.

Think of the AI as a fast, eager assistant who has read widely but has not read your file and might invent things to please you. Your prompts should leave it little room to do that.

Wins one and two: summaries and clause comparison

Weak: “Summarize this contract.” Strong: “Summarize this agreement under these headings: parties, term, payment, termination, liability limits, unusual terms. Quote section numbers and flag anything ambiguous.” Check every section number and every number or date against the original. Look for what the summary left out, such as carve-outs.

For clause comparison, paste both versions and ask for a table of differences in obligation, risk and deadlines. Weak: “Which is better?” Strong: “Do not recommend. List every change in wording that could change meaning.” Then you apply judgment about your client's position.

Wins three and four: drafts and client explanations

For a first draft, give facts, audience, purpose and tone, and tell the tool to mark gaps as [CONFIRM]. Weak: “Write a demand letter.” Strong: “Draft a courteous but firm letter using only these facts; mark anything missing as [CONFIRM]; do not cite law.” Check each fact, the tone and every statement that could be read as a threat or admission.

For client explanations, ask for plain language under 200 words and require a line saying you will advise on their situation. Check that it does not promise an outcome. It should educate without advising, and you should add the personal advice yourself.

Win five: a consistency pass on your own draft

Ask the tool to list inconsistent defined terms, differing dates and numbers, and every legal authority mentioned in a separate list without changing it. This takes minutes and catches the kind of error that creeps in over many revisions.

Then do the human step. Open each authority in an official or trusted legal database and confirm that it exists, says what you claim, is still good law and applies in your jurisdiction. Courts in several countries have sanctioned lawyers who filed invented citations from AI. This step is not optional.

Practice now

Choose a public sample contract. Run the summary prompt and the clause-comparison prompt and check them against the original.
Draft a fictional client letter with the [CONFIRM] technique, then mark every fact you would need to confirm.

Use any AI assistant you have. Do not paste private, client or patient information into it.

Check yourself

1. What does 'mark missing facts as [CONFIRM]' prevent?

2. After an AI-assisted draft lists a statute, what comes next?

3. Why tell the tool 'do not recommend' in a clause comparison?

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Next lesson: Guardrails for lawyers

AI-drafted. Checked by an automated validator and a separate AI reviewer; a person has not read every lesson. Translations and tutor answers are AI-made. Found a mistake? Tell us. AI can be wrong. General information only, not professional advice. Not affiliated with any AI company named. Current University is not accredited.