Advanced Prompt Techniques for Legal Work
Once ICI is solid, use advanced techniques to get more reliable outputs and reduce rework.
Key takeaways
- Use persona to control tone; use constraints to control risk.
- Few-shot examples are the fastest way to improve structure.
- For legal tasks, ask for assumptions and a verification checklist.
Persona and role assignment
Example: “You are a senior employment lawyer drafting for a conservative federal judge.” Persona helps with tone, structure, and issue-spotting.
Conditional instructions (if/then logic)
If the document mentions arbitration, extract the clause and summarize: scope, seat, rules, carve-outs, and fees.
Few-shot examples
Provide a mini-example of the input and the output you want. This can dramatically improve extraction and formatting tasks.
Constraining the model to reduce hallucinations
- Tell the model to use only pasted text
- Require it to quote before it paraphrases
- Ask it to identify assumptions