![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.attorneyatwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/metaprompting-for-lawyers-1.jpg?resize=770%2C495&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
Table of contents<\/h2>\n\n- Metaprompting My AI, Because Who Knows Better?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Starting a Prompt from Scratch and Steadily Improving<\/a><\/li>\n
- Improving An Existing Prompt<\/a><\/li>\n
- Sound Like Me \u2026 But What Do I Sound Like?<\/a><\/li>\n
- This Works for Pictures Too<\/a><\/li>\n
- Metaprompting as Your Co-Pilot<\/a><\/li>\n
- More Tech Tips From Affinity Legal<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
Metaprompting My AI, Because Who Knows Better?<\/h2>\n
Occasionally, I want AI to help me accomplish a task, but I\u2019m not sure the best way to ask it to do that. Whenever I\u2019m stumped for a prompt, I turn to the best expert I know on AI \u2026 my AI.<\/p>\n
Metaprompting<\/a> is the art of having the AI help you craft the prompt you\u2019re going to use with the AI \u2014 and improve its own instructions.<\/p>\nStarting a Prompt from Scratch and Steadily Improving<\/h2>\n
When I\u2019m starting from scratch, I can ask the AI to be my prompt engineer and walk me through the process of crafting the prompt. Here\u2019s an example of a prompt I use to start the process:<\/p>\n
\n\n\n\nAct as my prompt engineer. We\u2019re going to work together to create a prompt I can use to have you help me accomplish a task. You need to follow exactly this process.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nFirst, you\u2019re going to ask me what task I want to accomplish \u2013 what\u2019s the goal of the prompt.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nSecond, you\u2019re going to give me a draft of the prompt based on what I\u2019ve told you, then ask any follow-up questions that will help you further refine the prompt to make it better.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRepeat this second step as many times as you need to until you\u2019re confident that we\u2019ve got the best possible prompt.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRunning this prompt will trigger the AI to have a conversation with me that leads to a series of steadily improving prompts. Once the AI gets to the final prompt (which usually takes 3-5 iterations, in my experience), I can copy that prompt, start a new conversation and paste in the prompt.<\/p>\n
Within just a minute or two, I generally have a well-designed and effective prompt to accomplish my task.<\/p>\n
Bonus: <\/strong>I find that the process of having this conversation with the AI causes me to think more deeply about what I\u2019m trying to do, which can lead me to an even better outcome.<\/p>\nImproving An Existing Prompt<\/h2>\n
Sometimes I\u2019m not starting from scratch but have an existing prompt that I\u2019d like to make better. I can usually get some good ideas just by asking the AI to help critique my prompt.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019ll do is, after I\u2019ve finished my conversation with the AI about whatever the task was, I\u2019ll add one more prompt at the end:<\/p>\n
Suggest ways I could have made my original prompt in this conversation more effective.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThe AI will take a look at the conversation we just had and suggest things I could do next time to get to a better outcome more quickly or efficiently.<\/p>\n
Sound Like Me \u2026 But What Do I Sound Like?<\/h2>\n
Another use for metaprompting comes when you\u2019re trying to describe something to the AI but struggling to find the right words. <\/p>\n
For example, you want the AI to draft a blog post or a letter, and you want it to sound like you do. But \u2026 how do you describe your own writing style? Simple: Ask the AI.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019ll do is find a couple of examples of my own writing that I think best exemplify the style I want, and ask the AI to describe the writing style for me:<\/p>\n
How would you describe the voice, tone, and writing style of these articles? <article1>, <article2>, <article3><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThe AI will look at the articles and give me a description of what it thinks that style is. Now I can collect those adjectives and use them the next time I want to have the AI draft something that sounds more like me.<\/p>\n
This Works for Pictures Too<\/h2>\n
I use a similar technique when I want AI to create an image. I usually have an idea of what I want the image to look like, but I may not know how to describe that style. If I find an image that has a similar look and feel, I can show the AI that image and ask it to describe its style.<\/p>\n
Then I know that what I envisioned is \u201cpost-modern, neo-classical, pseudo-realism in earth tones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Metaprompting as Your Co-Pilot<\/h2>\n
You\u2019ve already got a pretty good expert on how to work with AI at your fingertips. Don\u2019t be shy about asking the AI to guide you on how to be more effective with the AI.<\/p>\n
\nMore Tech Tips From Affinity Legal<\/h2>\n\n- Starting 2026 Safely: Cybersecurity Best Practices for Law Firms<\/a><\/li>\n
- Microsoft Bookings for Lawyers: Make a Date With Personal Booking Pages<\/a><\/li>\n
- Cut Through the Clutter: How Copilot Helps You Get a Handle on Your Inbox<\/a><\/li>\n
- Legal AI Myths: Separating Fact from Fiction in Your Law Firm<\/a><\/li>\n
- Law Firm Tech Cleanup: 6 Steps to Boost Efficiency\u00a0and Cut Costs\u00a0Now<\/a><\/li>\n
- 15 Secure Collaboration Hacks Every Lawyer Should Know<\/a><\/li>\n
- 6 Ways Microsoft Word Speech-to-Text AI Can Help You Write Faster and Better<\/a><\/li>\n
- PDF Bookmarks: The Secret to Quickly Creating User-Friendly Documents<\/a><\/li>\n
- Never Forget to Follow Up: Using Outlook Email Reminders<\/a><\/li>\n
- Templates to Create Model Documents That Save Your Law Firm Tons of Time<\/a><\/li>\n
- Paperless Law Practice: How to Boost Efficiency, Cut Costs and Improve Client Satisfaction<\/a><\/li>\n
- Take Your Practice to the Next Level With Document Automation Tools<\/a><\/li>\n
- How to Master Page Numbers in MS Word<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nImage \u00a9 iStockPhoto.com. <\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.attorneyatwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/AttorneyatWork-Logo-%C2%AE-2021-1.jpg?resize=372%2C106&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\nSign up for Attorney at Work\u2019s daily practice tips newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to our podcast<\/a>, Attorney at Work Today.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Schorr | Metaprompting is simply the art of having the AI help you write the perfect prompt for the task at hand. It\u2019s like hiring the AI as your own personal prompt engineer. The post Metaprompting for Lawyers: The Smart Way to Craft Smarter Prompts appeared first on Articles, Tips and Tech for Law […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Metaprompting My AI, Because Who Knows Better?<\/h2>\n
Occasionally, I want AI to help me accomplish a task, but I\u2019m not sure the best way to ask it to do that. Whenever I\u2019m stumped for a prompt, I turn to the best expert I know on AI \u2026 my AI.<\/p>\n
Metaprompting<\/a> is the art of having the AI help you craft the prompt you\u2019re going to use with the AI \u2014 and improve its own instructions.<\/p>\n When I\u2019m starting from scratch, I can ask the AI to be my prompt engineer and walk me through the process of crafting the prompt. Here\u2019s an example of a prompt I use to start the process:<\/p>\n Act as my prompt engineer. We\u2019re going to work together to create a prompt I can use to have you help me accomplish a task. You need to follow exactly this process.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n First, you\u2019re going to ask me what task I want to accomplish \u2013 what\u2019s the goal of the prompt.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Second, you\u2019re going to give me a draft of the prompt based on what I\u2019ve told you, then ask any follow-up questions that will help you further refine the prompt to make it better.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Repeat this second step as many times as you need to until you\u2019re confident that we\u2019ve got the best possible prompt.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Running this prompt will trigger the AI to have a conversation with me that leads to a series of steadily improving prompts. Once the AI gets to the final prompt (which usually takes 3-5 iterations, in my experience), I can copy that prompt, start a new conversation and paste in the prompt.<\/p>\n Within just a minute or two, I generally have a well-designed and effective prompt to accomplish my task.<\/p>\n Bonus: <\/strong>I find that the process of having this conversation with the AI causes me to think more deeply about what I\u2019m trying to do, which can lead me to an even better outcome.<\/p>\n Sometimes I\u2019m not starting from scratch but have an existing prompt that I\u2019d like to make better. I can usually get some good ideas just by asking the AI to help critique my prompt.<\/p>\n What I\u2019ll do is, after I\u2019ve finished my conversation with the AI about whatever the task was, I\u2019ll add one more prompt at the end:<\/p>\n Suggest ways I could have made my original prompt in this conversation more effective.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The AI will take a look at the conversation we just had and suggest things I could do next time to get to a better outcome more quickly or efficiently.<\/p>\n Another use for metaprompting comes when you\u2019re trying to describe something to the AI but struggling to find the right words. <\/p>\n For example, you want the AI to draft a blog post or a letter, and you want it to sound like you do. But \u2026 how do you describe your own writing style? Simple: Ask the AI.<\/p>\n What I\u2019ll do is find a couple of examples of my own writing that I think best exemplify the style I want, and ask the AI to describe the writing style for me:<\/p>\n How would you describe the voice, tone, and writing style of these articles? <article1>, <article2>, <article3><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The AI will look at the articles and give me a description of what it thinks that style is. Now I can collect those adjectives and use them the next time I want to have the AI draft something that sounds more like me.<\/p>\n I use a similar technique when I want AI to create an image. I usually have an idea of what I want the image to look like, but I may not know how to describe that style. If I find an image that has a similar look and feel, I can show the AI that image and ask it to describe its style.<\/p>\n Then I know that what I envisioned is \u201cpost-modern, neo-classical, pseudo-realism in earth tones.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ve already got a pretty good expert on how to work with AI at your fingertips. Don\u2019t be shy about asking the AI to guide you on how to be more effective with the AI.<\/p>\n Image \u00a9 iStockPhoto.com. <\/p>\n Sign up for Attorney at Work\u2019s daily practice tips newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to our podcast<\/a>, Attorney at Work Today.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ben Schorr | Metaprompting is simply the art of having the AI help you write the perfect prompt for the task at hand. It\u2019s like hiring the AI as your own personal prompt engineer. The post Metaprompting for Lawyers: The Smart Way to Craft Smarter Prompts appeared first on Articles, Tips and Tech for Law […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Starting a Prompt from Scratch and Steadily Improving<\/h2>\n
Improving An Existing Prompt<\/h2>\n
Sound Like Me \u2026 But What Do I Sound Like?<\/h2>\n
This Works for Pictures Too<\/h2>\n
Metaprompting as Your Co-Pilot<\/h2>\n
\nMore Tech Tips From Affinity Legal<\/h2>\n
\n
\n<\/a><\/figure>\n