How to Boost Your Legal Career with ChatGPT: Introducing Prompt Engineering for Lawyers
Artificial Intelligence Program ChatGPT Can Transform Your Practice: But Mastering It Means Learning to Ask the Right Questions
“Prompt engineering” is a new name for a new skill that can help lawyers get the most out of ChatGPT by learning how to craft questions that play to its strengths.
ChatGPT can help lawyers break out of the “curse of knowledge” and write client updates, compliance policies, action plans, and blog posts in plain English that are more helpful to readers.
Lawyers should seize the opportunity to learn tools like ChatGPT, which are either free or very cheap, but at the same time, they must be cautious when using ChatGPT and remember that they are responsible at all times to verify that answers are correct and that client confidences are protected.
Introducing Prompt Engineering: Getting the Most Out of ChatGPT
From what I’ve seen, most lawyers who have tried ChatGPT have — mostly — tried the following steps:
Type in a research query on some legal question;
Review ChatGPT’s answer and find mistakes, including things like ChatGPT just flat out making up, e.g., case law;
Decides it’s “not ready yet” and move on.
But this type of testing plays to ChatGPT’s weaknesses, not its strengths, and doesn’t show the real power of how it can help lawyers and the legal system work better.
Short version: focus more on “brainstorming and finding connections” and less on “careful legal or factual answers.”
But what if we tried it on a different type of task? Rather than asking it to do legal research or answer fact-driven questions, what if we asked it to do something more, dare I say it, “creative.”
Use Case 1: ChatGPT Writes a Client Update
The best way to understand ChatGPT is not to talk about it but to try it.
Let’s try using ChatGPT to write a client update about a recent court decision or a change to a regulation. In my experience, most client updates written by lawyers are – to put it charitably – pretty dense and not very helpful.
“Dear Clients: Last week Appeals Court X held that the ABC rule did not generally apply under the XYZ doctrine where a defendant had not previously blah blah blah. . . Here are 7 lengthy block quotes (in turgid, abstruse language) from [the court’s opinion/the new regulatory language] Be sure to stay up to date on this important area of the law. Give us a call if you have any questions. Love always – your law firm.”
Does this sound familiar? Not very helpful. Long on abstract analysis, short on actionable advice. Part of the challenge, I believe, is that lawyers suffer from the curse of knowledge, i.e., a lawyer who is an expert on, say, mythical creature custody law (legal issues surrounding ownership care and custody of manticores, unicorns and similar creatures) or Chrono-legal studies (legal issues related to property rights and time travel), assumes that everyone else has the same background knowledge. ChatGPT can help us break out of this.
Here’s how. I encourage you to try this on your own:
Go to chat.openai.com
In the window, type the following prompt
I am going to provide you with a [news story/description of a decision/amendment to a regulation]. You are a world-renowned lawyer who works with a client in the [XYZ] industry/industries. Prepare a client update to be emailed to current and potential clients explaining the significance of [the case/new regulation] to our clients. The update should explain how this [case / new regulation] is relevant to [XYZ] industry.
Generate a compelling subject line for the update that will encourage recipients to open and read the email update.
Here is the information about the [case/regulation/whatever]Take a look at what ChatGPT generates. How does it compare to most client updates that you’ve read? Extra credit: how does it compare to most client updates that you’ve written?
The information you typed in in step 2 is known as a “prompt.” Here’s Sam Altman (@sama), CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, explaining the importance of good prompts:
and the task of writing effective prompts has come to be known as “prompt engineering” As Rob May (@robmay) explains, prompt engineering comes down to tailoring your input into ChatGPT in order to get the output you want:
Prompt engineering is a little bit art and a little bit science. But it’s quickly becoming an important skill. The essence of prompt engineering is getting the model to give you the output you want in the format you want. . . .
I wonder if we will see some lawyers turn to GPT-3 prompt engineers.
Rob May, The Rise of Prompt Engineering, And Lawyers As The Top Candidates
Why You Owe It To Yourself To Try ChatGPT
When I tried ChatGPT for the first time, it only took a few minutes to convince me that this was an unprecedented, powerful tool. As I noted in prior posts, I still find it incredible to see a software program generate text that looks like it was generated by a human or a team of humans.
What happens next? Nobody knows. Will it be the end of lawyers? Nobody knows for sure. What is clear to me is that ChatGPT, and Artificial Intelligence, generally, are improving rapidly, and you can make a “very cheap bet” with a potentially very high upside by experimenting with it and learning it.
A few reasons to think it’s for real.
As we mentioned last time, a recent paper analyzed hundreds of occupations and concluded that legal services are at the top of the list: LLMs Are Going to Disrupt the Legal System, Whether We Like It Or Not.
Wharton Professor Ethan Molick (@emollick) reports at least two recent studies showing that using programs like ChatGPT as a “co-pilot” massively increased professional productivity. A study of software development showed that an artificial copilot made programmers over 50% more productive.
A similar study of white-collar professionals found that assistance from ChatGPT helped them write realistic “memos, strategy documents, and policies” almost 40% faster while increasing quality. As Professor Molick explains, the early evidence suggests massive productivity gains in multiple fields (including legal services):This suggests that the productivity gains that can be achieved through the use of general-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT seem to be truly large. In fact, anecdotal evidence has suggested that productivity improvements of 30%-80% are not uncommon across a wide variety of fields, from game design to HR. These are not incremental gains, but rather massive effects that have the potential to transform the way we work.
Ethan Mollick, Secret Cyborgs: The Present Disruption in Three Papers.
Bullish But Cautious: Things to Worry About
You know these already, but here are a few reminders regarding using ChatGPT.
Assume that everything you type into ChatGPT is public. The old rule applies: if you wouldn’t want it to wind up on the front page of the New York Times, then don’t put it into ChatGPT. Everyone is going to, within the bounds of the relevant rules, decide for themselves exactly how to strike this balance. But, for a start, I would say, of course, this means no attorney-client privileged information, and, to be on the safe side, I would not even mention any clients (or even opposing parties) by name. If you have any additional thoughts or questions on this – please share them in the comments.
As a professional, you are responsible for everything that goes out under your name. In other words, you need to check and double-check everything that ChatGPT produces. I might suggest that you adopt the view that ChatGPT is like a super smart associate who occasionally goes off the rails. Great at brainstorming, but not so strong on cite checking. What it produces is a starting point, not an endpoint for analysis.
Everything else. This is a brand new area of the law. We are all doing our best to figure it out. No doubt, new issues are going to arise. If you think of any, please share them in the comments below.
Where To Start
Here are a few ideas – think of them as a cookbook – to get you started. Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list. More designed to inspire your creativity. I hope you’ll share your own experience with these and other use cases.
Use Case 2: Rewrite a Compliance Policy in Plain English
As lawyers, we tend to make policies that are heavy on “exhaustively (exhaustingly?) accurate” rather than “comprehensible to the average person.” Asking ChatGPT to rewrite legalese into plain English plays to ChatGPT’s strengths. Here’s how we might craft a prompt:
I am going to provide you with a company policy that will be presented to all employees. Rewrite this policy so that is clear to all employees and other affected personnel what they need to do to comply with the policy. Write for an audience with a 6th grade reading level and use a professional tone.
Here is the policy
[insert full text of current policy]
I tried this with a sample policy and was impressed with the results. Eager to hear your thoughts.
Use Case 3: Turn Your Jumbled Thoughts into a Well-Organized Action Plan
Writing down notes after a meeting is a superpower cheat code. But I often struggle to get myself to do it (but maybe I’m the only one?) Here’s how ChatGPT can help.
After the meeting, dictate your thoughts into otter.ai (@otter_ai). Don’t worry if your thoughts are all jumbled up. Just talk. Pro tip – I find it helps to walk around, but maybe that’s just me. You can even create a checklist for yourself: Who did you talk with? What ideas came out of the meeting? What are the next steps? If you feel compelled to go off on a tangent, just do it, don’t hold back. Your goal is to get it all on tape. Then ChatGPT will “fix it in post.”
Use something like this prompt with ChatGPT
"I dictated some notes after meeting with [name of person] of the company [company name]. "Review these notes and provide (1) a bullet point summary of the most important topics mentioned (2) an organized description of each topic and a list of any action items or items to follow up on.
Here are my dictated notes: [paste in notes exported from Otter]
Use Case 4: Run a Free Virtual Artificial Focus Group To Get Insights Into Your Potential Clients
We’ve all heard a million times that the best lawyers are those who really understand their clients and can see things from their clients’ perspectives. Yet everyone (ok, not everyone, but a lot of them) I’ve ever talked with about working with lawyers has the same complaint: lawyers are too focused on proving how smart they are and not enough on solving problems.
Let's plug into ChatGPT’s ability to be creative and roleplay.
To set the stage, let’s say you are a lawyer who wants to bring in more big box retailers (Target, Home Depot, Costco … ) as clients. Here’s how ChatGPT can help you run a free focus group from your desktop. We will ask ChatGPT to play the role of Steve, who is our ideal client, a division head at one of these big box stores.
For this session, you will answer as Steve, the manager for the California division of big box retailers. As Steve, what are your top 5 concerns regarding legal issues in California. You are considering hiring a new law firm to handle various matters for you. What are the top 5 criteria that you will be considering as you evaluate new law firms and, for each criteria, how can a law firm demonstrate that it meets or exceeds that criteria.
I encourage you to try this right now – obviously, you should change to whichever state you are in and whatever practice area and industry you like. When I tried it, ChatGPT, playing “Steve,” said that “Employment law” issues were his number one concern. So I followed up:
Steve, regarding employment law specifically, are there any particular issues you are most worried about?
And ChatGPT, roleplaying Steve, proceeded to list several. Here’s a snippet:
Wage and Hour Compliance: California has some of the most complex wage and hour laws in the country, and I am concerned about ensuring that we are complying with all of the state's requirements, such as minimum wage, overtime, and meal and rest break rules.
Use Case 5: Client Updates – Advanced Mode – Writing Multiple Updates in the Same Style
If you already have a library of updates (or articles or blog posts) that you like, you can ask ChatGPT to create more documents in your “house style.” Note: I adapted this method from a technique from Igor Pogany. (@IgorPogany).
Pick your top two or three updates or blog posts you’ve written.
Use the following prompt with ChatGPT
I’m going to provide you with two/three blog posts. Analyze each blog post for style and tone of voice. Here is blog post number 1.
[paste in text from blog post number 1]
ChatGPT should then acknowledge receiving the post and provide a brief analysis.
Use the following follow-up prompt
I will now show you blog post number 2.
[paste in text from blog post number 2]Then use something like this prompt:
Write a blog post (/article/update) in the style of blog post 1 and blog post 2, on the topic of [insert topic]
What’s Next?
ChatGPT and tools like it are going to transform the way the legal system works and probably your legal career. The way to take full advantage is to understand this powerful tech's strengths and weaknesses.
The best way to understand ChatGPT is not to talk about it but to try it.
I hope these examples have inspired you to try it and invent your own use cases. I hope you’ll share your experiences in the comments below.
Happy prompting!
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