Step 1: Open the file (intake note from the client email)
Technique Clear, direct brief
Be clear and direct: the four-part anatomy (goal, context, expectations, source), plus data minimisation before pasting
The brief
Learning objective
Turn a vague ask ('summarise this email') into an instruction that names the deliverable, its required contents, its audience, its format and the only source the model may use, and strip the pasted material of identifiers and sensitive facts the deliverable does not need, so that the output can be pasted into the file without rework and the prompt could be shown to a regulator without embarrassment.
Scenario
You are the associate who has just been sent a new commercial lease dispute. The client's CFO has emailed a slightly panicked account of a break-notice dispute with the landlord, and, as clients do, has included two pieces of gossip that have nothing to do with the legal problem. The supervising partner wants a one-page matter note on the file before she calls the client back this afternoon. You will paste the email into an AI assistant and ask it to produce the note. Firm policy: identifiers are replaced by placeholders where the task allows, and facts the deliverable does not need are not pasted at all.
Your task
Write the complete prompt, including the version of the email you would paste. The note must be usable as-is: the partner should be able to read it in two minutes and know who the parties are, what happened when, what the landlord is asserting, what the client wants, what documents we hold, and what we still need to ask the client. Edit the email before pasting: replace the names of individuals with role placeholders (the companies may stay), and leave out anything the note does not need. Do not write the note yourself; write the prompt.
Materials
What you have on file
From: Dana Kell, CFO, Brackwater Foods Ltd Subject: Kestrel Park lease - landlord says our break notice is invalid We need help fast. We lease Unit 4, Kestrel Park (cold-storage warehouse) from Orrin Property Holdings on a 10-year lease from 1 March 2021, with a break option on 1 March 2027. Our operations director, Tom Reade, emailed the landlord's asset manager, Priya Osei, on 28 May 2026 giving notice that we will break; she replied the same day 'Received, will revert'. Tom is going through a divorce and has been off a lot, which is partly why nobody chased a posted copy. We have signed for a new site; rent there starts 1 January 2027. Yesterday Orrin's solicitors wrote saying (1) the notice is invalid because it was sent by email, and (2) even if valid, the break is conditional on the repair covenant and the refrigeration plant is 'in disrepair'; they attach a schedule claiming 480,000. They offer to 'resolve everything' if we withdraw the break and sign a five-year extension. The plant was serviced in April; our engineer says it works fine. We cannot afford two rents. The board meets on 20 September; between us, one director, Hal Moss, wants me out and will use this to push it. Can you tell us where we stand? Lease and letter attached. Dana
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Names a concrete deliverable with an action verb and lists the required contents (at minimum: parties and roles, key dates or chronology, counterparty's asserted positions, client objectives and constraints, documents held, open questions for the client) | 25 | 'Produce an internal matter note with these headings: ...' followed by an explicit list covering all six content areas; not 'summarise' or 'have a look at'. |
| States who the note is for and what it will be used for | 15 | The prompt says the reader is the supervising partner (or the file) and that it precedes a call-back or file opening, so the model can pitch depth and register. |
| Specifies output format and a length ceiling | 15 | A word or page limit, the form (headed sections or short lists), and a date convention; the output could be pasted into a file-opening form without reformatting. |
| Restricts the model to the email as the sole source and tells it how to handle gaps | 20 | 'Use only information in the email; where it is silent write not stated and add a question under Open questions' or equivalent, so nothing is inferred from general knowledge. |
| Sensitive facts the note does not need (the operations director's divorce and absences; the director's private hostility to the CFO) are omitted entirely from the pasted email and the instructions, even as a do-not-mention instruction, and individuals are referred to by role placeholder | 15 | The pasted email contains neither fact and no individual's name; the instructions say nothing about them; [Operations Director], [Asset Manager], [CFO] or similar are used consistently. Company names may remain. |
| Passes the colleague test: unambiguous, internally consistent, no filler or obsolete scaffolding | 10 | A colleague with no context could follow it; no contradictions (e.g. 'be exhaustive' plus 'three bullets'); no persona hype, politeness padding or 'think step by step'. |
Hints
Stuck? Open one at a time.
Hint 1
Lead with an action verb and the deliverable ('Produce an internal matter note that contains...'), not with the topic ('This is about a lease...'). List the headings the note must contain, as you would hand a trainee a form.Hint 2
Say what to do when the email is silent: 'write not stated and add a question', so the model does not fill gaps with guesses.Hint 3
For each sentence of the email ask: does the note need it? The divorce and the boardroom politics do not go in, not even as 'do not mention'. Names of individuals become [Operations Director], [Asset Manager], [CFO].
Your prompt