Edit

Put the actor back in front of the verb

Finds every sentence where the doer vanished into a passive, a nominalization, or a weak verb, rebuilds it around a named actor, and keeps the passives you meant to use.

About 10 minstarterLitigation

Your prompt4,984 characters

Still to fill in: Passage to rebuild, Who reads this

RoleYou are an editor who reads legal prose for one question: who did what. A passive voice, a nominalization, and a weak verb are three ways of answering that question badly, and you can spot all three at reading speed. You also know that a lawyer sometimes hides the actor on purpose, so you never convert a sentence without checking whether the fog was deliberate.What I needRebuild the passage below so a reader can tell who did what, for Who reads this. Leave the vagueness in Where you are hiding the actor on purpose exactly where it is.InputsPassage: Passage to rebuild Who reads this: Who reads this Vagueness that stays: Where you are hiding the actor on purpose House rules on voice: House rules on voiceHow to work this1. Inventory first, change nothing yet. Quote every instance of four things, with its location: a passive construction, a "to be" verb carrying the whole sentence, a nominalization (a verb turned into a noun: "the filing of the motion," "made a determination," "was in violation of"), and a weak-verb phrase (give, make, take, perform, conduct, effectuate, plus a noun doing the real work). 2. For each, find the actor in the draft itself. Where the text names who did it, rebuild the sentence around that actor and a verb that carries the action: "the plaintiff filed the motion," not "the filing of the motion occurred." Where the text does not name anyone, invent nobody. Mark it [ACTOR MISSING] and tell me what the sentence would be claiming if I supplied one. 3. Keep every passive that is working: the actor is genuinely unknown, legally irrelevant, or one I am shielding, plus anything in Where you are hiding the actor on purpose and anything House rules on voice protects. List each kept passive with a one-clause reason. Turning "the funds were transferred" into "my client transferred the funds" inside a document about my client's conduct is not an improvement, it is a concession. 4. Report the counts, before and after, for each of the four kinds, and name the three rebuilds that did the most for Who reads this.Close with these four sections, every time, without being askedAssumptions I made. Every actor I attributed and what in the text told me. Mark each [verify] or [safe]. Where two readings of a sentence pointed at different actors, quote it and give both. Where this is weakest. The two rebuilds most likely to have said more than the record supports. Naming an actor is an assertion; quote the original and the rebuild and say what the rebuild now claims that the original did not. What only you can decide. Options with tradeoffs, never a bare flag. At minimum: whether the sentences I marked [ACTOR MISSING] get an actor. Supplying one makes the passage land and commits you to proving it, while leaving it passive keeps the sentence true on a thinner record and reads as evasion to Who reads this. Also yours: whether any passive I converted was load-bearing vagueness from an earlier negotiation or filing and should go back word for word. What would make this materially better. Ranked: the record cite behind each sentence I marked [ACTOR MISSING], the surrounding paragraphs so the actor can be traced, and whether this passage has already been filed or sent in its current form.Output formatA table covering every instance: Location | Original | Rebuilt | Kind (passive, to-be, nominalization, weak verb) | Changed or kept, with the reason for every kept one. Then the rebuilt passage, ready to paste. Then the before and after counts for each kind, and the three rebuilds that mattered most. Then the four sections.Never do this- If the rebuilt passage would work with the names swapped out, it is too generic. The actors are the point; they come from my text. - No hedging filler. Do not replace a passive with "it appears that the defendant" or "arguably the defendant." Name the actor or mark it [ACTOR MISSING]. Do not tell me to consult an attorney; I am the attorney. - Never alter a quotation, a citation, a statutory phrase, or a defined term to make a sentence active, and never invent an actor, a date, or a fact. Anything you supply that is not in my text gets marked [UNVERIFIED - check before sending]. - Where you cannot tell whether a passive is evasion or precision, say you do not know and leave it. Do not smooth over the doubt with a confident rebuild. - Do not pad. If the passage has four buried actors, report four. Length is not value.Before you answer- Did I invent an actor anywhere, or attribute an act to someone the text does not name? - Is every quotation, citation, and defined term identical to the input? - Did any rebuild turn a hedged sentence into an admission? - Did I list a reason for every passive I kept? - Would this table be useless against a different passage? It should be.

The run walks turn one, the pressure test, the follow-up, and a check on what came back. The Cockpit adds driver's-seat tunes. Your values come with either one.

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

Your own client reads this passage in a prep session and starts correcting you about who actually did what. Take their chair as the client: point to every sentence where the rebuild now names them as the actor on a record that may not support it, every place where the original vagueness was protecting them, and the one sentence that now reads as an admission. Then come back to my side and tell me which of those go back to passive and which are simply true and better said plainly.

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

Habits travel between documents. Turn this pass into a check the writer can run alone before sending anything: the search patterns that surface each of the four constructions in a word processor, the question to ask at every hit, and the two situations in this practice where a passive should survive the check. Draw every example from the passage above so it reads as their own writing rather than a style guide.

4Check what came backPaste the answer here and work a checklist against this prompt's own rules.

Before you run it

What to gather first

The passage you want rebuilt, not the whole file
Who reads it, because a client letter and a brief hide different things
Any sentence where you are hiding the actor on purpose
House rules on voice, if your firm has them

Watch for

Naming an actor is a factual assertion. A rebuilt sentence can commit you to something the record does not support, and it reads as a concession when opposing counsel quotes it back.
Passive voice is a legitimate tool. Statutes, jury instructions, and negotiated contract language often use it deliberately, and converting it can change an obligation.
The model cannot tell your deliberate vagueness from sloppy drafting unless you say which is which. Fill the field or check every conversion.
Do not paste privileged or client-confidential drafts unless your firm's AI policy and the engagement terms permit it.

What comes back

A table covering every instance (location, original, rebuilt, kind, changed or kept with a reason), then the rebuilt passage ready to paste, the before and after counts for each of the four kinds, the three rebuilds that mattered most, and the four closing sections.

See an example of what you’ll get

Inventory and rebuilds | Location | Original | Rebuilt | Kind | Status | |---|---|---|---|---| | ¶ 4, sent. 1 | "The requests were served on March 3." | "Acme served the requests on March 3." | Passive | Changed | | ¶ 4, sent. 2 | "No production has been made to date." | "BetaCorp has produced nothing to date." | Passive | Changed | | ¶ 5, sent. 1 | "A determination was made by counsel that the objections were not well founded." | "Counsel determined the objections were not well founded." | Passive plus nominalization | Changed | | ¶ 5, sent. 3 | "The failure of BetaCorp to engage in the meet-and-confer process is the basis for this motion." | "BetaCorp refused to meet and confer, which is why Acme moves to compel." | Nominalization | Changed | | ¶ 6, sent. 2 | "Acme made a request for the comparator files on four occasions." | "Acme requested the comparator files four times." | Weak verb | Changed | | ¶ 7, sent. 1 | "The documents were deleted sometime after the hold notice issued." | unchanged | Passive | Kept. You told me the identity of the deleter stays open | | ¶ 7, sent. 2 | "The hold notice was issued on February 11." | unchanged | Passive | Kept. Who inside BetaCorp issued it is unknown to us and irrelevant to the motion | | ¶ 8, sent. 1 | "It is believed that additional custodians exist." | "[ACTOR MISSING]" | To-be | See below | Rebuilt passage (¶¶ 4 to 6): Acme served the requests on March 3. BetaCorp has produced nothing to date. Counsel determined the objections were not well founded and said so in writing on March 24. BetaCorp refused to meet and confer, which is why Acme moves to compel. Acme requested the comparator files four times. [ACTOR MISSING], ¶ 8. "It is believed that additional custodians exist." Believed by whom? If Acme believes it, say "Acme believes," and the sentence needs the basis: a document, a deposition answer, an organizational chart. If a witness said it, name the witness and the cite. As written the sentence asserts nothing and a magistrate will read it as a guess. Counts. Passive: 6 before, 2 after (both kept deliberately). Nominalizations: 3 before, 0 after. Weak-verb phrases: 2 before, 0 after. "To be" verbs carrying a sentence: 4 before, 1 after (the one marked [ACTOR MISSING]). The three that mattered. ¶ 5 sentence 3: "the failure of BetaCorp to engage in the meet-and-confer process" made the refusal sound like a condition of the weather. Naming BetaCorp as the actor of a refusal is the whole motion. ¶ 4 sentence 2: "no production has been made" hides that a party chose not to produce. ¶ 6: "made a request on four occasions" buries the repetition that a magistrate actually cares about. --- Assumptions I made. That "counsel" in ¶ 5 means Acme's counsel rather than BetaCorp's [verify: the paragraph is genuinely ambiguous, and if it is BetaCorp's counsel the rebuild reverses the sentence's meaning]. That the March 24 letter exists and is Acme's [safe: ¶ 5 refers to it]. That "four occasions" in ¶ 6 is a count you can support from the correspondence [verify]. Where this is weakest. Two rebuilds assert more than the original did. "BetaCorp refused to meet and confer" replaces "the failure to engage in the meet-and-confer process," and refusal implies a request that was made and declined. If your record shows only that they did not respond, the honest verb is "did not respond," which is weaker and survives a reply brief. Second, "BetaCorp has produced nothing to date" is stronger than "no production has been made" and is falsified by a single stray document. Confirm the production log before it goes in. What only you can decide. Options with tradeoffs on ¶ 8. Supplying an actor ("Acme believes additional custodians exist, based on the March 3 organizational chart at Ex. 4") makes the sentence do work and invites the magistrate to ask what the chart actually shows; leaving it passive keeps the sentence unfalsifiable and reads to a magistrate as a fishing expedition. Also yours: whether ¶ 7 sentence 1 stays passive. Keeping the deleter unnamed preserves your spoliation theory for a later motion, while naming BetaCorp now makes this motion angrier and forces you to prove it on a thinner record. What would make this materially better. Ranked by impact: (1) The March 24 letter, which decides whether "refused" or "did not respond" is the accurate verb in ¶ 5. (2) The production log behind "nothing to date." (3) Whether ¶ 8's belief rests on a document you can cite, which is the difference between a sentence worth keeping and one worth cutting.

Why this prompt is built the way it is

## Framework 1. **Inventory before you rewrite.** Every passive, every "to be" verb carrying a sentence, every nominalization, and every weak-verb phrase, each quoted with its location. 2. **Name the actor from the draft, never from imagination.** If the text does not say who did it, mark it and say what the sentence would claim if an actor were supplied. 3. **Keep the working passives.** Actor unknown, actor legally irrelevant, or actor deliberately shielded. Every kept passive gets a one-clause reason. 4. **Report the counts and the three rebuilds that changed the most.**