You summarize documents, prepare question lists, track deadlines, and translate legal language for clients and internal teams. 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.
Summarize a policy or document in plain language
Build a question list from a document before a review meeting
Rewrite a legal paragraph so a non-lawyer understands it
Turn scattered notes into a structured intake summary
Before you paste anything
What never goes into a chatbot in this job
Never paste client documents, matter details, opposing party information, or anything privileged. Pasting privileged material into a third-party tool can waive privilege — this is the one industry where the risk is that concrete.
Which tool: Legal-specific tools with confidentiality terms exist and are worth the money in a firm. A general chatbot is for practicing on public or hypothetical documents only.
Plain-language summary
Summarize a policy excerpt in plain language without adding legal advice.
Copy this prompt
I work in paralegal and legal support work. Help me create one plain-language summary that I can review and edit before use.
Relevant context:
- Role: Paralegals and Legal Assistant
- Work context: You summarize documents, prepare question lists, track deadlines, and translate legal language for clients and internal teams.
Task:
Create a plain-language summary that separates text from interpretation.
Source material:
Employees may use approved communication tools for business purposes. Confidential information must not be shared with external systems unless authorized by policy and management.
Beginner practice shape: a short plain-language summary with known facts, missing information, and one review-before-use note.
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 paralegal and legal support work. Help me create one plain-language do points that I can review and edit before use.
Relevant context:
- Role: Paralegals and Legal Assistant
- Work context: You summarize documents, prepare question lists, track deadlines, and translate legal language for clients and internal teams.
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:
Practice policy: Employees may use approved AI tools for non-confidential drafts; confidential, regulated, or client data must not be entered; unsure cases go to the policy owner.
Beginner practice shape: a short plain-language do points with known facts, missing information, and one review-before-use note.
Return only the finished work:
plain-language do points
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 paralegal and legal support work. Help me create one clarifying question list that I can review and edit before use.
Relevant context:
- Role: Paralegals and Legal Assistant
- Work context: You summarize documents, prepare question lists, track deadlines, and translate legal language for clients and internal teams.
Task:
Create a review-intake question list without answering the legal issue.
Source material:
A vendor wants us to sign an updated data-sharing addendum by Friday, and the requester wants to know if it is okay.
Beginner practice shape: a short clarifying questions with known facts, missing information, and one review-before-use note.
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 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. Client documents, matter details, opposing party information, or anything privileged. Pasting privileged material into a third-party tool can waive privilege — this is the one industry where the risk is that concrete.
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.
For skills practice on public documents and for plain-language rewriting of material that is not client-specific, yes. For anything touching a live matter, use a tool your firm has vetted with confidentiality terms — and never rely on AI for citations, which it fabricates convincingly.
Why are the prompts here so basic?
Deliberately. Contract review, risk triage, and anything matter-specific need a review step and firm-approved tooling, so those live in guided practice rather than as public prompts. Summarizing and question-building are the parts that are genuinely safe to hand over.
