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Write the client update that stops the status call

Today

The client has no idea what happened at the hearing, so they call. The associate who knows the answer is billing on another matter, so the update waits a week and the client calls twice more.

With Claude

You paste the docket entries and your own shorthand, and get a plain language letter the client can actually follow. The attorney fixes the judgment calls, which are already marked, and signs it.

The prompt

Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.

You are drafting a client update letter for a law firm. Write in plain English at roughly an eighth grade reading level. The reader is [describe the client, e.g. a small business owner with no legal background].

Rules:
- Use only the information I give you below. Never add a fact, a date, or a next step that is not there.
- Do not give legal advice, do not predict the outcome, and do not promise anything.
- Explain every legal term the first time it appears, in one short clause.
- Wherever the letter needs a judgment only the attorney can make, insert [ATTORNEY: your specific question here] instead of guessing.
- 400 words maximum.

Structure it as: what has happened since our last update, what that means for the client in practical terms, what happens next and roughly when, what we need from the client, and how to reach us.

What the client already knows about this matter:
[one or two sentences]

What has happened recently:
[paste the docket entries, hearing notes, or your shorthand here]

What we need from the client:
[list it, or write "nothing right now"]

What to skip in law firms

Client confidential material in a personal consumer login. Privilege and Rule 1.6 do not bend because a tool is convenient. Anthropic's consumer plans (Free, Pro, Max) use your chats to improve their models only when the model improvement setting is turned on in Privacy Settings, and commercial plans such as Team, Enterprise, and Claude for Work exclude inputs from training by default. ABA Formal Opinion 512 puts the work on you: read the terms yourself, judge the risk of disclosure, and get informed client consent where it is required, and it says boilerplate engagement letter language does not count as informed consent. Settle the account, the setting, and the consent question before a real matter goes in, and practice on redacted or hypothetical facts until you have.
Legal authority and deadline math. A language model can produce case names, docket numbers, quotes, and holdings that read perfectly and do not exist. In Mata v. Avianca the Southern District of New York sanctioned the lawyers under Rule 11 after a brief cited cases that were never real. Treat every authority Claude gives you as unverified until you have pulled it in your own research service and read it. Same rule for dates: never let Claude calculate a statute of limitations, a response date, or a filing deadline. Have it quote the dates in your material, then calendar the deadline yourself.
Anything that leaves the firm without an attorney reading it. Claude does not practice law and does not give legal advice, and none of this changes who signs the document. No pleading, motion, demand, opinion, or client letter should go out because Claude drafted it and it looked fine. Do not put Claude in front of clients or the public to answer legal questions, and remember your state's advertising rules cover whatever you say about AI on your own website.

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Every prompt on this page plus the rest, so you still have them on Monday. One email, then four short ones on making it stick. Unsubscribe any time.

Or answer four questions and Claude writes three workflows for your specific business rather than the industry generally.

Before you try it

More for law firms

Full guide for law firms