The secret to powerful and effective AI prompts

Legal AI can be a powerful tool for lawyers. Yet, like any powerful tool, it takes time to learn how to use it effectively. This involves developing an understanding of how AI works and its limitations, in order to craft AI prompts that unlock the answers you’re looking for, in the shortest amount of time. Let’s dive into what powerful AI prompts look like.

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What is a prompt?

A prompt is a question you pose to a legal AI assistant that guides it towards the specific information or assistance you require. The clarity and precision of your prompt directly influence the AI’s ability to understand your needs and deliver accurate, tailored answers.

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Why do you need powerful prompts?

The more vague a prompt is, the more likely you’ll receive a vague or irrelevant response. Likewise, the more specific you can be, the more relevance and accuracy you can expect in return. This ultimately saves you more time in the long run, as you can extract the optimal answer quickly.

LawY, as an AI assistant purpose-built for lawyers, is uniquely built to interpret and respond to legal queries. We encourage using the CLEAR framework to create powerful prompts that will help you get the most out of LawY.  

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Create powerful AI prompts using the CLEAR framework

Context

Start by clearly defining the legal issue or task at hand. Be specific about the context you’re asking about.

Lucid

Frame your question in a clear and concise way.

Should you have lots of specific but related questions regarding one context, we recommend not putting this all into one message. Instead, split them into separate questions in a conversation.

This means you can maintain the clarity in each prompt while also getting all of the answers you’re looking for.

Explicit

Specify how you would like the AI to answer you. What is the ideal output or format? We encourage you to request the output at the start of the prompt, whether it be a case summary, email, letter, or template.

Assume less

Provide all relevant information to ensure LawY has a comprehensive understanding of your request.

In the same way you would consider what context is needed when asking the question to a colleague who isn’t familiar with a case, consider what details could influence the answer.

Reiterate

If necessary, refine your prompt for clarity. There are lots of ways to experiment with phrasing and adding clarifying questions, which can help optimise your results.

For example, after you’ve asked an initial legal question, you could ask a follow up prompt such as:

• Provide relevant case law
• Summarise into bullet points
• Turn this into an email to a colleague
• Replace placeholders with [your information]
• Change the tone to be friendly / professional / direct / etc

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Explore advanced techniques for creating AI prompts

Evolving your AI prompts to adhere to the L.U.C.I.D. framework is just one way to leverage the full capabilities of AI. It’s also worth exploring these two techniques to unlock powerful conversations.

The Reflection Pattern Prompt

The University of Florida has published a useful resource on this, defining the Reflection Pattern Prompt as:

“…a technique used in prompt engineering to improve the quality and reliability of responses from AI models… It involves asking the model to explain the reasoning, assumptions, and limitations behind its answer, as well as to provide evidence or examples to support its response.”

This is especially useful when you’re tackling a complex or nuanced topic, particularly if you are unfamiliar with it. By asking the AI to provide the resources or reasoning behind an answer, you can better understand the topic. Additionally, it can help unearth any biases or limitations in its response, or even highlight good starting points for any further research.

Follow these steps to use the Reflection Pattern Prompt:

1. Ask your legal question: Start by asking LawY the question you want it to answer
2. Apply the reflection prompt: Follow up with a prompt that asks the AI to reflect on its response. This can include questions like:
   • What are the assumptions behind your answer?
   • What evidence or examples support your response?
   • Identify any key points that may be missing from this summary and explain why they were not included.
   • What are the potential limitations of this answer?
   • What are the potential uncertainties in this answer?
3. Evaluate the response: Review the AI's reflection and consider whether it has addressed any potential weaknesses or uncertainties in its initial response. If necessary, ask follow-up questions to clarify any points.

This technique is powerful for lawyers as it encourages an iterative approach to AI legal research, thus leading to safe and effective integration of AI into practice.

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Example of the Reflection Pattern Prompt, using the LawY case summary feature

Here are a series of prompts you can use in LawY:

Prompt 1: Case summary for [insert URL link]

Prompt 2: Expand the case summary, include details of the courts analysis and key quotes (use exact wording) from the judgment in support of the court’s analysis and ultimate decision.

Prompt 3: What were the key legal arguments of the parties?

Prompt 4: Set out the courts analysis of the parties’ key legal arguments and key quotes (use exact wording) from the judgment in support of the court’s analysis.

Prompt 5: What are the key legislation and cases referred to in this case? [limit to [x]]

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Specifying the Output Format technique

Another useful technique is by specifying the output format. The benefits include: increased clarity of output, greater relevance in the AI-answer, a higher level of consistency of structure between AI-answers which could be helpful for content creation or data analysis, and improvements in efficiency, as you no longer need to reformat or restructure the AI-answer.

The University of Florida has simply defined this technique as:

“…providing clear instructions to the AI model about how you want the response to be structured or presented. This helps guide the AI to generate output that is tailored to your specific needs and preferences.”

Follow these steps to leverage this technique:

Use explicit instructions, e.g. asking for a specific output, such as:

• Letter
• Email
• Bullet point summary
• Checklist
• Table

Use structured formatting, such as requesting the AI to ‘add bullet points’, ‘use paragraphs’, ‘include subheadings’, or even more stylistic requests around ‘write in a formal tone’ or ‘remove generic phrases such as I hope you’re well’.

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Examples of the Specifying the Output Format

Prompt: Write a letter to my client about the requirement of financial disclosure in property settlement proceedings, using only paragraphs and in a formal tone.

Prompt: Summarise Ascot Investments Pty Ltd v Harper [1981] HCA 1 ****using subheadings and bullet points and include the name of the judge.

Prompt: Explain how the court determines property settlement proceedings in a letter to my client. Add subheadings and make the tone friendly.

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Fast-track your legal research with confidence using LawY

Ultimately, the more you use AI, the more comfortable and proficient you will become. We recommend experimenting in LawY with conversations, and seeing how different follow-up questions can explore related legal questions, extract more detail or transform new outputs (such as a letter or email).

In conclusion, the above tips and techniques are useful for AI in general, however, not all AI is the same. Generic AI platforms are powerful, yet they often don’t deliver the relevance needed for your specific geographical region or area of law; nor the transparency on resources referenced.

That’s why we built LawY: a purpose-built legal AI solution with AI-answers that are specific to your matter and jurisdiction, and include linked citations. Plus, we’ve introduced a unique lawyer-in-the-loop feature, as a way to combine AI with human expertise.

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