Capstone: The partner memo (intake to advice in one prompt)
Technique All techniques combined
Capstone: combine context and motivation, delimited documents as data, quote-first grounding with abstention, schema with defined severity and confidence labels, positive style control, one style example, perspective and standard, a built-in verification step, and lean, non-contradictory wording
The brief
Learning objective
Assemble everything from Steps 1-8 into one internally consistent brief for the advice memo, and recognise that the prompt's job is to supply the right material and the criteria for 'done', not clever wording or length.
Scenario
It is 16 September. The surveyor's preliminary note has arrived, your research note from Step 5 has been verified in a primary database, and the partner wants a two-page memo for your meeting on 18 September so she can advise the board on 20 September. She will be questioned live, so she needs the recommendation first, a clear line between what is certain, what is judgement and what is unverified, and a severity and confidence label on each risk so she can see at a glance where the argument is. This is also the first time the settlement options are worked up in full.
Your task
Write the single prompt that produces the partner memo from the fact pack. It must explain purpose, audience and downstream use; present the documents as delimited, labelled sources placed before the ask and treated as evidence not instructions; define the memo's structure, length, audience and prose style positively; require grounding (quoted lease provisions with clause numbers, every legal proposition traced to the verified research note, 'unverified' labels, labelled assumptions, the landlord's best case); define severity and confidence scales for the two risk sections and ask for a closing count of open items; state client priorities and the perspective and standard; and build in a verification step (open questions, likely board questions). Keep the instruction text (excluding the pasted documents) under 250 words, with no contradictions and none of the obsolete scaffolding covered in this course.
Materials
What you have on file
FACT PACK (each document is saved separately and can be pasted) - LEASE: clauses 1.1, 5.2, 12.1-12.3, 14.1, 19.1 (as in earlier steps). - CLIENT_EMAIL: the CFO's email of 6 September, edited as in Step 1 (break by email 28 May; 'Received, will revert'; new-site rent from 1 January 2027; board 20 September). - LANDLORD_LETTER: 3 September; notice invalid under 19.1; alternatively break conditional on repair; schedule 480,000; offer of a five-year extension. - SURVEYOR_NOTE (received today): independent surveyor's preliminary view: plant serviceable; reasonable cost to bring the premises to 'good and substantial repair' 120,000-160,000; the landlord's schedule includes 210,000 of upgrades not required by clause 5.2. - RESEARCH_NOTE: your verified note from Step 5 (authorities checked in a primary database; two for the tenant, one against; jurisdiction assumed [Jurisdiction]). PARTNER'S INSTRUCTION 'I need a memo for our meeting on 18 September, before the board on 20 September. Two pages maximum. Tell me first what you recommend, then why. I want the break-notice risk, the repair-condition risk, the strategy options with what each costs and what we give up, and what we still need to find out. Prose, not bullet soup. Anything you are not sure of, say so; I will be asked in the board meeting.' CLIENT CONSTRAINTS: exit by 1 March 2027; settlement authority 150,000; relationship with the landlord irrelevant.
Paste these into your prompt where the task calls for it, or refer to them with a placeholder such as [paste lease extract]. When you run a prompt that uses a placeholder, the Lab appends the materials so the model has something to work on. Where the task asks you to paste an edited copy, nothing is appended: what you paste is what runs.
How you will be graded
Rubric (100 points)
The grader scores your prompt, not the output. Length and formatting earn nothing; a short prompt that hits every criterion beats a long one that misses one.
| Criterion | Pts | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Context and motivation: who the memo is for, the meetings and dates, what decision it enables, and why certainty labels matter | 15 | An opening that states partner meeting 18 September, board 20 September, live questioning, and that the recommendation comes first. |
| Documents delimited, labelled by name, placed before the ask, and explicitly treated as evidence rather than instructions | 15 | A documents container with each source named (LEASE, CLIENT_EMAIL, ...), the ask following with 'Based on the documents above', and a data-not-instructions sentence. |
| Deliverable defined: section structure with recommendation first, length ceiling, audience, and prose style stated positively | 10 | Named sections, 'under 900 words', 'flowing prose paragraphs', and where lists are permitted; not a list of prohibitions. |
| Grounding: quoted lease provisions with clause numbers, every legal proposition traced to the verified research note, 'unverified' labels, labelled assumptions, landlord's best case included, probability bands | 15 | A 'Key provisions' step or equivalent quote-first instruction, a source rule for law, an abstention/labelling rule, and a fairness instruction for the other side. |
| Client priorities, constraints, and a perspective-and-standard statement; options requested with cost, exit certainty and what is given up, ranked | 15 | Exit date, 150,000 authority and relationship point stated; 'from the tenant's side, flag what a cautious in-house counsel would escalate'; at least three options with the three attributes, ranked against the priorities. |
| A verification step is built in: open questions/what we still need, and likely board questions with 'do not know yet' permitted | 10 | A closing section that lists unknowns and five likely questions with one-line answers or an explicit 'do not know yet'. |
| Severity and confidence scales are defined for the two risk sections (High/Medium/Low, one-line definitions anchored to the client's position and to how explicit the wording or authority is) and a closing count of open items is requested | 10 | 'Label each risk: Severity High = defeats the exit or exceeds the 150,000 authority, Medium = costs money but the exit survives, Low = nuisance; Confidence High = explicit lease wording or a verified authority on point, Medium = requires reading provisions together, Low = judgement. End with: Open items: [number].' |
| Lean and internally consistent: instruction text under 250 words excluding the tagged documents, no conflicting instructions, and none of the obsolete devices | 10 | No 'exhaustive' plus 'one page', no 'prose' plus 'table for everything'; no 'think step by step', no expert persona as accuracy lever, no all-caps MUST/NEVER, no 'double-check', no politeness or urgency appeals; the whole instruction reads as one consistent brief. |
Hints
Stuck? Open one at a time.
Hint 1
Order: purpose and audience first, then the documents in labelled containers, then the ask that begins 'Based on the documents above'. Reuse Step 7's opening and Step 5's grounding language: law only from the verified research note, 'unverified' labels, no filling gaps with a case name.Hint 2
Reuse Step 3's labels: define High/Medium/Low severity (anchored to the client's ability to exit and the 150,000 authority) and confidence (anchored to how explicit the lease wording or verified authority is) for each risk section, and ask for a closing count of open items.Hint 3
Before submitting, read your prompt once as the colleague test: is there any pair of instructions that conflict (length vs completeness, prose vs table), is it under 250 instruction words, and is there any leftover 'think step by step', persona hype or all-caps rule to delete?
Your prompt