Help Me Help You: How to Use AI to Prepare for Our Meeting

AI is here, and many of my clients are already using tools like Gemini and Co-Pilot to try and make sense of their legal situations.

In my previous blog post: "How to use AI without annoying your Judge (or your solicitor); AI is a good assistant but a terrible lawyer!", I issued a strong word of caution. We discussed the dangers of AI "hallucinations" (inventing fake cases), and why AI is never a substitute for qualified legal advice.

If you haven't read that post yet, please pause and read it now. It is the essential safety briefing before you handle the tools.

However, if you follow those safety rules—specifically, if you keep names anonymous and stick to organizing facts rather than asking for legal strategy—AI can be a brilliant tool for turning a chaotic "brain dump" of events into a structured timeline.

To help you do this safely and effectively, I have developed a "Master Prompt" designed specifically for litigation clients.

The "Garbage In, Garbage Out" Rule

AI models are impressive, but they need very specific instructions to be useful in a legal context. If you just type "Write a witness statement about my unfair dismissal," you will get a generic, legally useless, and potentially dangerous document.

You need to give the AI a specific role, clear constraints, and raw information to work with.

Below is a suggested master prompt. Its goal is not to write your final legal arguments. Its goal is to help you organize your memories and documents so that we—solicitor and client—can build your strategy faster and more effectively.

The Client's Litigation Master Prompt

Copy and paste the text below into your AI tool. Crucially, you must fill in the bracketed [ ] sections with your specific details.

THE PROMPT:

"Act as a highly organized, methodical legal assistant working for a Solicitor in the UK. Your Task: I am going to provide you with a disorganized "brain dump" of facts, dates, and events regarding my legal matter, which involves [Insert type of case, e.g., an employment dispute regarding constructive dismissal / a commercial contract dispute].Your job is to read this information and reorganize it into a clear, chronological timeline. Your Constraints (Crucial Rules): Do NOT invent any facts. Only use the information I provide below. If a date or detail is missing, state "[Date Unknown]" or "[Detail Missing]". Do NOT provide legal advice. Do not tell me if my case is strong or weak. Do not suggest legal arguments. Identify Gaps: At the end of the timeline, create a separate list called "Missing Information / Questions to Ask Solicitor" highlighting areas where my narrative is unclear or where evidence seems to be missing.Tone: Keep the timeline factual, neutral, and professional. Here is the information to organize: [PASTE YOUR BRAIN DUMP OF FACTS, DATES, AND EVENTS HERE. REMEMBER TO ANONYMIZE NAMES IF YOU WISH.]"

How to Tailor This Prompt (Important!)

This prompt is a template. It will fail if you don't adapt it to your situation.

1. Define the Case Type: In the first paragraph, be specific. Replacing "[Insert type of case]" with "a disability discrimination claim at an Employment Tribunal" gives the AI much better context than just saying "a legal dispute."

2. The "Brain Dump" Section: This is where the work is. The best way to use this section is to open a Word document or use dictation software and just get everything out of your head. Don't worry about grammar or order.

• “On the 5th of Jan my boss said X, and then a week later sent an email confirming Y, but before that in December we had a meeting where Z happened…” Start with that messy paragraph. The AI is excellent at untangling it.

3. Review the Output Critically: Once the AI generates the timeline, read it carefully. Did it misunderstand something you wrote? Did it assume a date you didn't provide? You must verify the output against your own memory and records.

The Next Step: Bring it to Me

Remember the golden rule: AI output is a starting point, never the finish line.

The timeline this prompt generates is not ready for a judge. It is a preparatory document for me, your solicitor.

By using this prompt, you can turn up to our initial consultation or our witness statement drafting session armed with a clear chronology and a list of identified gaps. This saves us enormous amounts of time on administrative fact-sorting, allowing us to focus our energy (and your budget) on what truly matters: tenacious advocacy and high-level strategy.