Legal

Customizing a general-purpose LLM as a legal copilot

Use a general-purpose AI model as a legal practice copilot to help small legal teams summarize case files, brainstorm research issues, draft or polish emails and memos, spot issues in transactions, extract timelines, and support day-to-day legal work in the lawyer’s preferred style.

Why the human is still essential here

The lawyer must define how the AI should work, provide the right context and instructions, verify outputs, and apply legal judgment. AI supports the workflow, but the attorney still decides strategy, what arguments to make, what work product is safe to rely on, and takes responsibility for final advice and drafting.

How people use this

Firm-style contract drafting and clause suggestions

AI uses the lawyer’s preferred structure, fallback positions, and precedent language to draft first-pass contract sections and propose alternative clauses for attorney redline and approval.

Claude / ChatGPT

Transaction diligence issue spotting and checklisting

AI summarizes provided deal documents, flags missing items, and generates a diligence question list and issues tracker aligned to the lawyer’s established diligence workflow for review.

Claude / ChatGPT

Client email and internal memo first drafts

AI turns bullet-point notes and deal facts into client-ready emails and internal strategy memos in the lawyer’s tone and formatting for final legal judgment and sign-off.

Claude / Microsoft Word

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Related Prompts (2)

Community stories (4)

X

I've spent two years figuring out how to make a two-person law firm compete with teams twenty times its size using AI.

New Article, possibly my last for a while.

I've spent two years figuring out how to make a two-person law firm compete with teams twenty times its size using AI. This is the closest I'll come to explaining how.


Also explains why I can type “plz fix” and get back work product that reads like I spent three hours on it, when really I spent three hundred hours building the system that did.

ZS
Zack ShapiroManaging Partner at Rains LLP; AI-Enabled Corporate Lawyer
Mar 25, 2026
LinkedIn

Is anybody else totally hooked on these stories about lawyers using AI and getting into trouble?

Is anybody else totally hooked on these stories about lawyers using AI and getting into trouble? Because I can’t stop reading them.

Every week there seems to be a new headline about someone relying on AI, citing a case that doesn’t exist, and having it slip way too far through the system before anyone catches it.


It’s wild to watch, but it also raises a real question: what does responsible use of AI in law actually look like?


I’ll go first: I do use AI in my practice. Not to write pleadings for me, and not to think for me but to make what I’m already doing sharper and more efficient.


When I use AI this way, it feels like a smart assistant sitting in the background, not a ghostwriter and definitely not the decision‑maker.


The judgment, strategy, and responsibility are still mine.


Thinking about how to help my team use these tools well, maybe a “lunch and learn” so we can all get better at using them safely and thoughtfully...


I’m curious: if you’re a lawyer, how are you using AI right now (if at all)?

LW
Laurie WassermanPartner, Family Law & Divorce Attorney
Mar 10, 2026
X

Great piece on using Claude AI to speed up your legal work, with conclusions surprisingly aligned with what we see in AI coding.

Great piece on using Claude AI to speed up your legal work, with conclusions surprisingly aligned with what we see in AI coding. I use it almost every day!

This year, AI will redefine many industries. It's the biggest improvement I've seen since I first encountered GPT-3 in 2020. Don't be the last to embrace the new reality, because it will reach you sooner than you think.

DP
Dominik PosmykCo-founder of @quickchatai (YC S18)
Mar 2, 2026
X

Why I use Claude as my legal AI copilot (not specialized legal tools)

Over the past couple weeks I've had a ton of lawyers reach out to ask me what AI tech I'm using in my legal practice.

The answer, increasingly, is @claudeai. That's basically it.


Not Harvey. Not CoCounsel. Not Spellbook. A general-purpose AI that I've taught how I practice law.


Here's how I use it:

...

ZS
Zack ShapiroManaging Partner at Rains LLP (AI-enabled corporate lawyer)
Feb 27, 2026