Prompts for Legal Professionals: Save Time Without Inventing Case Law

In several countries, lawyers have been sanctioned by judges for filing briefs citing decisions that didn't exist. A chatbot had made them up, complete with an appeal number, a date, and a chamber, and nobody had opened the database to check. That's the profession's main risk, and it determines how to work: you don't ask the AI what the law says, you give it a text and ask it to work on it.

This rule still opens up many possibilities. Reading, comparing, summarizing, rephrasing, preparing questions: anything that starts from a document you supply is a good task. Anything that asks the tool to retrieve a rule or a decision from memory must go through your own verification, on Légifrance (the official French legal database) or in your usual database.

Professional secrecy first

A lawyer, in-house counsel, or notary is bound by confidentiality. Pasting a contract with the names of the parties into a general-purpose tool can be a problem, whether you're bound by professional secrecy or by a confidentiality clause. Replace the names with "Company A" and "Company B," remove the amounts if you can afford to, and look at the tool's terms. Some professional plans include commitments not to use the data: read them and have your firm validate them. The overview on privacy gives the general landmarks.

Summarizing a contract and spotting the clauses to watch

Take an in-house lawyer at a small business who receives an eighteen-page service contract, with a request to sign by Friday. She wants a first read before diving in.

You are an assistant to an in-house lawyer specializing in French law. Here is a service contract, anonymized:

[PASTE THE CONTRACT]

We are the provider / the client (strike out the one that doesn't apply).

1. Summarize the purpose, duration, price, and payment terms in ten lines.
2. Draw up a table of sensitive clauses: article number, what it provides, why it deserves attention (liability, penalties, renewal, termination, intellectual property, confidentiality, exclusivity, price revision).
3. List what is missing and what is usually found in this type of contract.

Rely only on the text provided and cite the article each time. If a clause is ambiguous, copy it in quotation marks without interpreting it. Do not state any rule of law or court decision that I haven't supplied.

The last sentence is deliberate: you want a reading of the text, not an approximate law lecture. Then check every cited article against the document. A summary that forgets an automatic renewal clause is more dangerous than no summary, because it reassures. Working with long documents explains how to limit omissions on long texts.

Comparing two versions of a text

An amendment, two versions of general terms and conditions, a contract sent back by the other party with its changes: comparison is a task that suits AI well, because you supply both texts.

Here are two versions of the same contract.

VERSION 1 (sent by us):
[TEXT]

VERSION 2 (returned by the other party):
[TEXT]

List all substantive differences, article by article, in a table: article, original wording, modified wording, practical effect for us in one sentence. Ignore differences in formatting and punctuation. End with the three changes that most alter the balance of the contract, explaining your ranking.

The comparison tools in your word processor remain safer for catching every changed word. AI is useful for ranking what matters, not for guaranteeing completeness.

Preparing a letter or memo from your own materials

A formal notice, a memo to a client, a draft reply to a letter: supply the facts, the exhibits, and the position, and let the AI propose a draft.

Draft a letter of [TYPE: FORMAL NOTICE / REPLY / REMINDER], in French, firm and courteous tone.

Sender: [WHO], recipient: [WHO].
Facts, in chronological order: [FACTS WITH DATES].
Exhibits to cite: [LIST].
What we are asking for: [PRECISE REQUEST AND DEADLINE].
Applicable texts, which I have verified: [ARTICLES].

Use only the facts and texts above. Cite no case law. If an important element seems to be missing for the letter to hold up, list it at the end instead of making it up.

The phrase "which I have verified" makes the difference: you supply the references, the AI doesn't produce them. A draft of this kind saves you the formatting and the first writing, and you keep control over the strategy and over every word that binds your client.

Verify instead of believing

If you ask the AI for a rule or a decision anyway, treat the answer as a research lead, not as a source. Ask it instead to suggest keywords or texts to consult, then go and read them in the official source. For a systematic approach, verifying an AI answer offers a simple method, and reducing hallucinations shows how to frame the prompt to limit inventions, without eliminating them.

None of this replaces analysis by a legal professional for a decision that binds someone. If you're not a lawyer and you're reading this article for a personal dispute, these prompts will help you understand a document and prepare your questions, not settle the matter.

First try

Choose a contract you've already analyzed by hand and know well. Run it through the first prompt, after anonymizing, and compare the clauses flagged with those you had noted. Look at what the AI missed before looking at what it found in addition.