You draft first passes at parenting-plan language, summarize a client's financial affidavit for the attorney, and manage a case calendar where a missed hearing date has real consequences for someone's kids. These prompts are written for that work — copy one into ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or Gemini, or practice it with step-by-step feedback and keep the ones you reuse.
Not everything — but these four come up every week, and they are all writing tasks, which is where today's tools are strongest.
Turn a client's messy timeline of events into a clean chronology
Draft the cover note explaining a discovery request to a client
Summarize a financial affidavit into the key numbers for the attorney
Write the reminder telling a client what to bring to mediation
Before you paste anything
What never goes into a chatbot in this job
Never paste a client's actual financial affidavit, custody details, or anything naming a child or a domestic violence incident — this is privileged material, and a general AI tool is not a protected place to put it. Describe the category of document and the legal question instead.
Which tool: Family law offices are usually small enough that there's no firm-wide AI policy yet, so paralegals default to whatever free tool they use at home. Ask your supervising attorney before feeding anything case-related into it — confidentiality rules apply to you too, not just the attorney.
Plain-language summary
Summarize a policy excerpt in plain language without adding legal advice.
Copy this prompt
I work in family law paralegal work. Help me create one plain-language summary that I can review and edit before use.
Relevant context:
- Role: Family Law Paralegal
- Work context: You draft first passes at parenting-plan language, summarize a client's financial affidavit for the attorney, and manage a case calendar where a missed hearing date has real consequences for someone's kids.
Task:
Create a plain-language summary that separates what the policy text literally says from any interpretation of what it means.
Source material:
"Marcus from Support pinged me again about the AI-tools clause -- his team keeps asking what it actually means and getting a different answer from whoever they ask. Here's the piece everyone's stuck on: 'Employees may use approved communication tools for business purposes. Confidential information must not be shared with external systems unless authorized by policy and management.' Can you turn that into something his team can read in two minutes flat, split into what it literally says versus what people keep assuming it means? Last quarter somebody told his team it meant no ChatGPT ever, full stop, and that wasn't right, so I don't want another guess dressed up as an answer. Need it before his 9am standup Thursday."
Return only the finished work:
plain-language summary
Boundaries:
- Do not invent facts. Label missing information clearly.
- If information is missing, label it as missing instead of guessing.
- If I type "STOP FOR NOW", stop expanding the work and give only the best partial version from the information already provided.
Open in your agent
Copies the prompt and opens your tool in a new tab — paste it into the chat box (Ctrl or ⌘ + V), then fill in your own details. Remove private or sensitive information before using AI for workplace tasks.
Policy plain-language summary
Summarize an internal policy into plain do and don't points — no legal advice.
Copy this prompt
I work in family law paralegal work. Help me create one plain-language do points that I can review and edit before use.
Relevant context:
- Role: Family Law Paralegal
- Work context: You draft first passes at parenting-plan language, summarize a client's financial affidavit for the attorney, and manage a case calendar where a missed hearing date has real consequences for someone's kids.
Task:
Turn a policy excerpt into plain-language do/don't points and a short 'ask a person if' list. Do not give legal advice.
Source material:
"Hey -- new AI-use policy just dropped from Legal and half of engineering already has questions in the Slack channel. Section 4.2 is the part that matters: 'Employees may use approved AI tools for non-confidential drafting work; no confidential, regulated, or client data may be entered into any AI tool absent written authorization from the Compliance Office; where classification is uncertain, the requestor shall escalate to the designated policy owner prior to use.' Renata in HR already asked if she can use it to draft an offer letter that references a candidate's visa status, and Owen on the vendor team wants to paste a supplier's SOC 2 report into ChatGPT to summarize it. I need something the whole team can actually read before Tuesday's town hall."
Return only the finished work:
1. plain-language do points
2. don't points
3. 'ask first if' list
Boundaries:
- Do not invent facts. Label missing information clearly.
- If information is missing, label it as missing instead of guessing.
- If I type "STOP FOR NOW", stop expanding the work and give only the best partial version from the information already provided.
Open in your agent
Copies the prompt and opens your tool in a new tab — paste it into the chat box (Ctrl or ⌘ + V), then fill in your own details. Remove private or sensitive information before using AI for workplace tasks.
Question list builder
Generate clarifying questions for a legal or compliance review request.
Copy this prompt
I work in family law paralegal work. Help me create one clarifying question list that I can review and edit before use.
Relevant context:
- Role: Family Law Paralegal
- Work context: You draft first passes at parenting-plan language, summarize a client's financial affidavit for the attorney, and manage a case calendar where a missed hearing date has real consequences for someone's kids.
Task:
Build a review-intake question list for this addendum request without answering whether Section 4.2 is legally acceptable.
Source material:
"Hey — can you take a look at this before Friday? Corrigan Fulfillment sent over an updated data-sharing addendum for the Warehouse Ops contract, matter #LC-2291. Section 4.2 says they can share our inventory data with a subcontractor we've never worked with — no name, just 'an affiliate.' Procurement wants to sign this week so the shipping integration doesn't slip. Can you just tell me if Section 4.2 is okay to sign as-is?" — Dana, Procurement
Return only the finished work:
clarifying question list
Boundaries:
- Do not invent facts. Label missing information clearly.
- If information is missing, label it as missing instead of guessing.
- If I type "STOP FOR NOW", stop expanding the work and give only the best partial version from the information already provided.
Open in your agent
Copies the prompt and opens your tool in a new tab — paste it into the chat box (Ctrl or ⌘ + V), then fill in your own details. Remove private or sensitive information before using AI for workplace tasks.
How to use ChatGPT or Copilot for family law paralegals work
Start from your own rough version. Type or dictate what you would have written anyway, however messy. A prompt built on your real note beats a blank-page request every time.
Say who it is for and how long it should be. "Two sentences for a supervisor" and "a checklist a new hire can follow" produce completely different output from the same facts.
Strip the identifying details first. A client's actual financial affidavit, custody details, or anything naming a child or a domestic violence incident — this is privileged material, and a general AI tool is not a protected place to put it. Describe the category of document and the legal question instead.
Read every specific it produces. AI fills gaps with plausible invention — dates, amounts, names, policy numbers. If you did not supply it, do not trust it.
Keep the ones that work. The value compounds when you stop rewriting the same prompt. Save it with a note about when to use it.
Practice, don't just copy
Get better at these — free
Copying a prompt is a start. AI Lunchroom walks you through the task step by step with your own work, checks what your AI tool gives back, and saves the prompts you will reuse. Free to start, no credit card.
can a paralegal use ChatGPT to draft a parenting plan
Yes for a first-pass structure — standard holiday rotations, exchange logistics, boilerplate language — but never feed it your actual client's custody arrangement or the other side's demands. Draft the generic template, then fill in the specifics yourself, and have the attorney review anything before it goes to opposing counsel.
what's the best AI tool for a family law paralegal to use
Whatever your firm has already vetted — check before you assume free ChatGPT is fine for case-related drafting. If the firm runs Microsoft 365, Copilot keeps data inside that agreement; if there's no firm policy yet, ask your supervising attorney before you put anything client-specific into any tool, free or paid.
