Course · Interpersonal Skills
Prompt Engineering for Lawyers
Write clear, safe and checkable prompts for legal work: what never to paste, the six parts of a prompt, context and sources, everyday patterns, checking the output, testing and a prompt library, and your professional duties.
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People search for prompts for lawyers as if the right words were a secret. They are not. A prompt is an instruction, and writing a good one is the skill of briefing a capable junior colleague who has never met your client, together with the habit of checking what comes back. This course teaches both halves. It starts with what a prompt is and the confidentiality baseline: what never to paste and how to anonymise. It then teaches a six-part lens (role, task, context, reasoning, conditions for closure and output), how to give the tool a source and keep it to that source, eight patterns for everyday tasks, a routine for checking output for invented authorities, wrong jurisdictions and flattering answers, and how to test a prompt and keep a library. It ends with your professional duties in general terms, a short record of use and a firm policy, and a capstone in which you build a prompt pack for an invented supplier dispute.
The Curriculum
Why prompts matter for lawyers: what a prompt is, what the tool is for and what never to paste→
What a prompt is, why fluent is not the same as right, which legal tasks suit an AI writing tool, and the confidentiality baseline: what never to paste and how to anonymise. Practice: Paste, Strip or Stop, a safety judgement exercise and the Prompt Safety Scanner tool.
The anatomy of a prompt: role, task, context, reasoning, conditions for closure and output→
Six parts as a checklist: role, task, context, reasoning, conditions for closure and output. What each does, what breaks without it, and how to write each part. Practice: Name the Part, Spot the Weak Prompt and the Prompt Builder tool.
Context, sources and constraints: giving the tool what it needs and nothing it should not have→
Jurisdiction, stage, labels and audience; supplying the source and using only that; separating instructions from material; constraints; the minimum facts necessary. Practice: Rewrite the Prompt, Which Context Is Missing and Instructions or Material?
Prompts for everyday legal tasks: summarising, extracting, comparing, drafting, questioning and testing→
Eight working patterns: summarise, extract, compare, draft, rewrite, question, test an argument and plan research. A template and a watch-out for each. Practice: Pick the Better Prompt and How Well Does This Task Fit?
Checking the output: invented authorities, wrong jurisdictions, flattering answers and a verification routine→
Why tools invent cases and quotations, how they drift between jurisdictions, why they flatter a leading question, and a verification routine for citations, facts and figures. Practice: Find the Risks, What Do You Check First? and the Answer Checker tool.
Iterating, testing and building a prompt library: from one good answer to a method you can trust→
Follow-up prompts, changing one thing at a time, why answers vary, testing on a known answer, a prompt library without client information, and a symptom-and-fix table. Practice: Fix the Symptom and Library or Leave Out?
Professional duties and good practice: when not to use AI, telling clients and courts, documenting use and a firm policy→
Competence, confidentiality, supervision, candour, honesty with clients and fees, where to find the rules that bind you, when not to use AI, a short use log, telling clients and a firm policy. Practice: Duty or Not?, Write the Use Note and When to Say No.
Capstone: Capstone: a prompt pack for a supplier dispute→
A supplier is late, the frames are defective and the partner wants to know where an AI tool can safely help. Choose the tasks, scan the email, build the prompt, check the answer and decide what to record and say.
What It Covers
“You will not learn magic words. You will learn to ask clearly, to send nothing you should not, and to check everything before it goes anywhere.”
- A module-by-module path and a capstone that treat safety and checking as at least half of the skill, not an afterthought.
- Three working tools: a Prompt Builder that reviews your prompt, a Prompt Safety Scanner for what must not be pasted and an Answer Checker that lists what you must verify.
- Tool-neutral and timeless: no product names and no claims about what any tool can do, so the method does not date as tools change.
- Written for lawyers: privilege, candour to the court, supervision, fees and where to find the local rules that bind you.
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Or give this as a giftOther Scrolls in This Chamber
Across the Table$15 →Interests, walk-away numbers, offers, trades, pressure tactics and professional limits, with practice rooms and calculators.
Cooling the Room$15 →How conflict escalates, mapping a dispute, de-escalation, hard conversations, choosing a process, mediation, power, culture and ethics, with practice mediations.
The Client Conversation$15 →Trust, the first meeting, fees and scope, updates in plain words, advice and decisions, bad news, boundaries and ethics, with practice meetings.Part of a program
Step 16 of 18 in the Law and Data Program
Put honest numbers on legal work, design and automate it, and show the result so that people act. Each course is sold on its own; the whole program is $69 once and unlocks every course in it.
See the whole programModule 1 is free to try. Sign in, pass each module quiz and the course average, and your Certificate of Completion is emailed to you automatically. This course teaches method and technique with invented people and figures; it is general education, not legal advice, and professional rules differ from country to country.
Common questions
- Does the course teach one particular AI tool?
- No. Tools change quickly. The course teaches principles and habits that work with any general-purpose AI writing tool, and shows you how to test a tool on your own material.
- Does it give me a list of prompts to copy?
- It gives templates for common tasks and teaches you to adapt them. A copied prompt that you do not understand is the kind of shortcut this course is meant to prevent.
- Does it say what the rules are for lawyers using AI?
- No, and on purpose. Rules differ between countries, regulators and courts, and they are changing. The course teaches the general duties and shows where to find and keep up with the rules that bind you.
- Do I need technical knowledge?
- No. Everything is explained in plain words, with no code.
- Is this legal advice?
- No. It is general education using invented people and situations. Your own duties depend on your country, your regulator, your court and your clients.
- How is it different from AI Workflows for Legal Work?
- That course is about designing and evaluating a workflow around a model for a team. This one is about the individual lawyer’s daily habits: writing a safe prompt, checking the answer and keeping within your duties. They fit together.
- How do I get the Certificate of Completion?
- Sign in, pass each module quiz and keep a course average of at least 75. The certificate is then issued and emailed to you automatically.
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