Audit your week before you hand the first task over

1 · Learn the move · Template pattern

A firm picks its first AI job from whatever the bar conference was excited about: a research tool, a brief-writing machine. Pick it from your own week instead. Write down what you did, how long it took, whether it repeats, and whether information relating to the representation was in your hands while you did it. Then sort every line. DRAFT: the model writes a first version from de-identified facts you pasted (the memo skeleton, the plain-language letter to a client, the deposition outline). CHECK: it tests one thing against a source you pasted (every authority in a brief extracted into a table, a contract against the redline, a privilege log against the production index). YOURS: anything you sign, anything that goes to a court, anything a client hears from you. PRIVILEGED: anything that cannot be done without a privileged communication or an identifying fact going into a tool the engagement did not name. The first task to hand over is the one that is DRAFT, repeats weekly, and whose output you can check against a source in ten minutes. It is never the brief.

Here is my week, one line per task with the time it took and whether information relating to a representation was in front of me: [paste, de-identified]. Sort every line into DRAFT (first version from de-identified facts I paste), CHECK (one thing tested against a source I paste), YOURS (I sign it, it goes to a court, or a client hears it from me), or PRIVILEGED (cannot be done without a privileged communication or an identifying fact going in). For each DRAFT line say what I would paste and what I would have to open afterwards. Never move a PRIVILEGED line to DRAFT by assuming I will de-identify it; flag it and stop. End with the one DRAFT task to hand over first and why.