Today you stop reading about AI and start using it. You'll run your first real legal task in Claude Chat — analyzing a contract provision and producing work product you could actually send to a client.
The gap between "AI is a toy" and "AI changed my practice" lives entirely in the quality of your instructions. Today you'll see the difference firsthand.
Most lawyers who try AI write something like "review this contract" and get back something mediocre. Then they decide AI isn't useful for legal work.
The problem is not the AI. The problem is the input. Compare these two approaches:
Prompt A: "Review this contract."
Prompt B: "Review this services agreement from the vendor's perspective. Flag provisions where the customer shifted risk beyond market norms for this type of deal. Check for missing provisions that should be present, including limitation of liability, IP ownership, data handling, and termination for convenience. Produce a severity-rated summary with specific counter-language for each high-severity issue. Note that the vendor has limited negotiating leverage and wants to close the deal, so recommendations should focus on provisions worth fighting for versus provisions to concede gracefully."
Prompt A produces work product that requires extensive revision — if it's useful at all. Prompt B produces work product that is useful on the first pass. The entire gap lives in the quality of your instructions.
Every effective legal prompt to Claude includes these elements:
1. Context — What type of document is this? What's the deal? Who is your client?
"This is a Series A stock purchase agreement. My client is the company (seller side). The round is $5M led by a well-known VC fund."
2. Perspective — Whose interests are you protecting?
"Analyze from the company's perspective. Flag terms that are unfavorable to the company or its founders."
3. Scope — What specifically should Claude focus on?
"Focus on: protective provisions, board composition, anti-dilution, information rights, and drag-along provisions."
4. Standards — What should Claude measure against?
"Compare each term to standard market practice for Series A rounds in enterprise SaaS. Flag anything that deviates from NVCA model documents."
5. Output format — How should the analysis be structured?
"Produce a severity-rated table: Critical / High / Medium / Low. For each Critical and High item, include specific counter-language I can propose."
6. Constraints — What practical considerations matter?
"The company needs this funding to make payroll in 6 weeks. Recommendations should focus on must-haves versus nice-to-haves."
Here's your first exercise. Open Claude Chat and try this prompt (adapt it to a real matter you're working on, or use it as-is for practice):
Practice prompt:
"I represent a SaaS startup that just received a Master Services Agreement from a Fortune 500 prospect. The prospect sent their standard form — we have no leverage to demand our paper. Review the following provisions from my client's perspective and tell me: (1) which terms are standard for enterprise SaaS and I should accept, (2) which terms shift risk beyond market norms and I should push back on, and (3) which terms are missing entirely and I need to add. For each pushback item, suggest specific counter-language that a Fortune 500 legal team would find reasonable. Format as a table with columns: Provision | Status | Risk Level | Recommended Action | Counter-Language."
You don't need an actual MSA to try this. Paste any services agreement you have on hand — or describe the key terms and let Claude work with what you give it.
Notice the difference between this and "review this contract." Same AI. Dramatically different output.
Your first few prompts won't be perfect. That's normal. The skill develops quickly because the feedback loop is immediate — you see exactly how your instructions affected the output, and you adjust.
After a few iterations, you'll develop a feel for:
- How much context Claude needs to produce useful analysis
- Where Claude excels (comprehensive issue-spotting, cross-referencing provisions, generating counter-language)
- Where you need to apply your own judgment (deal dynamics, relationship considerations, business strategy)
The goal is not to have Claude practice law. The goal is to have Claude handle the production so you can focus on the judgment.