Your first AI wins: 5 everyday tasks

When you finish, you can run five common paralegal tasks through AI with a strong prompt and a clear checking step.

Before any task: remove the identifying details

For practice, use made-up or fully de-identified text. Replace names with labels like Witness A, Client B, Company C. Remove case numbers, addresses and anything that could point to a real person. Use only a tool your firm has approved for client material, and follow your firm's rules. You will learn the details in lesson three.

Then give the AI three things: a role, a task and a format. “You are helping a paralegal” sets the role. “Summarize the text below” is the task. “Use a table” is the format. Almost every strong prompt in this lesson follows that shape.

Win one and two: summaries and chronologies

A weak prompt: “Summarize this deposition.” You will get a smooth paragraph with no page references. A strong prompt: “Summarize the de-identified deposition text below in a table with columns for page and line, topic, and what Witness A said. Flag any statement that conflicts with another part of the text. Do not add anything not in the text.” Now you can check each row.

For a chronology, ask for date, event, source and a column called Needs checking. What to check: every date against the document, any event that the AI placed in an order the source does not support, and any detail you do not recognize. If a row has no source, delete it or find one.

Win three and four: client letters and plain-language forms

Weak: “Write a letter to my client about the case.” Strong: “Draft a calm, 150-word status update for a client. Include what has happened, what happens next, and what the client needs to do. Do not predict outcomes or give legal opinions. Use these facts: [facts].” The second prompt sets tone, length and limits.

Courts and agencies produce forms that confuse many people. You can ask AI to explain what each section asks for at an 8th-grade level and to list what information to gather. What to check: any rule or deadline the AI mentions. Local rules vary by court and country, so confirm them with the attorney or the court's own materials. The AI explains; it does not advise.

Win five: a second-reader pass on your own draft

Paste a de-identified draft and ask: “List every date, name and amount that appears more than once, and tell me if any values differ. List every legal citation separately without correcting them.” This catches typos and mismatches people miss after reading the same pages for hours.

The citation list is the safety step. AI tools have been known to produce case names and citations that look real but do not exist. Courts in several countries have criticized filings that included such invented cases. You verify every citation in an official or trusted legal database before it goes anywhere near a filing.

Practice now

Write a made-up three-paragraph witness statement. Ask an approved AI tool for a table summary with page-style references, then check each row against your text.
Take a de-identified draft letter you wrote and run the second-reader prompt. Write down what it caught and what it missed.

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

Check yourself

1. Why ask for a table with a source column in a chronology?

2. An AI draft includes a case citation. What do you do?

3. Which prompt is stronger?

Ask the AI tutor

Ask anything about this lesson, in any language. The tutor is an AI: it can be wrong, and it never needs your personal details.

Next lesson: Guardrails for paralegals

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.