Task Triage · For lawyers · Free
A lawyer’s day
The four questions, in order
- Question 1. Would the task put client-confidential or privileged information into a tool your firm has not approved? If yes: do not give it to AI.
- Question 2. Does it call for your own professional judgment, decision or signature? If yes: do not give it to AI. It may support you, but you decide.
- Question 3. Would you be using AI to check AI’s own output? If yes: do not give it to AI. Check against an authoritative source instead.
- Question 4. Otherwise, ask whether the result is quick and easy to check against a source you hold. If yes: give AI the first draft and read it. If not: use AI for leads only and verify every point against an authoritative source before relying on it.
This is a practice framework, not a rule of law or of professional ethics. Your regulator’s rules and your employer’s policy always come first. No outside law and no tools are needed: apply the four questions to each task.
1.Tidy the grammar and tone of a letter you wrote yourself, with all client details removed.
2.Summarise a 200-page public court judgment to decide whether it is worth reading in full.
3.Ask for the leading cases on a point of law that is new to you.
4.Paste a client’s full medical records and witness statements into a free public AI service to build a chronology.
5.Decide whether to accept a settlement offer on your client’s behalf.
6.Produce a first version of a standard non-disclosure agreement from your firm’s own template, with names left as placeholders.
7.Ask the AI to confirm that the case it just cited really exists.
8.Brainstorm counter-arguments to your own argument, entering the legal issue only, with the facts removed.
9.Finalise a skeleton argument for the court and file it without rereading it.
10.Translate the key clauses of a publicly available foreign standard-form contract to get the gist.
11.Draft a first-pass timeline of a company’s history from its public filings.
12.Write a plain-language explanation of how a court procedure works, using no client facts, for a client leaflet.
13.Score candidates’ CVs and decide whom to interview for a trainee post.
14.Turn your own meeting notes, with client names removed, into an action list.
Professional skills training. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace the rules of your regulator or the policy of your employer. It is not accredited by any court, regulator or professional body.
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