Give AI a brief it can actually follow

The idea

Start with the work you need. ‘Review this file’ gives little direction. ‘List conflicts about the delivery date and cite both sources for each’ gives you a result you can check.

What to check

Name the source files, the task, the form of the answer, and what to do if the record is unclear. Separate a request to find facts from a request to draw conclusions. Tell the tool not to fill gaps with guesses.

Use public or fictional records while learning. For client files, first check the firm's policy and the tool's data terms. A clear prompt cannot make an unsuitable service safe.

A missing instruction can change the assignment: accepting an offer is different from acknowledging it. Ask only when that difference matters. Missing evidence needs a source or an explicit gap; the user's preferred answer does not establish a fact. Minor details can remain placeholders. See the drafting brief. This is an editorial adaptation of selective clarification, not a measured legal-drafting improvement. [source]

Sources and further reading

Linked sources support the technical background identified below. The legal workflows, prompts, and fictional examples are original editorial exercises; they are not claims of endorsement by the linked authors.

Documentation Anthropic · Prompting best practices

Clear instructions, examples, and separating instructions from context. Consult the current linked guidance for model-specific details.

Research paper Kuhn et al. · CLAM: Selective Clarification

§3, Figure 3, Appendix B.1 and §5. Selective clarification in older-model question-answering experiments; does not validate the legal-drafting adaptation.

The short version

The idea

What to check

Sources and further reading