Prompt Pilotby Write.law
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Analyze

Turn intake notes into a triage memo

Converts raw consultation notes into a one-page memo that leads with take or decline, computes every deadline from its trigger event, and names each person to run through conflicts before you sign.

About 10 minintermediateSolo / small firm, Litigation

Checked against standard v2 on Sep 29, 2026 revised Sep 19, 2026

What to gather first

  • Your consultation notes, transcript, or intake form responses
  • The date of the triggering event and whether any document confirms it
  • Full legal names of every adverse party, entity, and insurer
  • Anything the prospect brought with them or promised to send
  • Your current caseload and what you can realistically absorb

Your prompt4,796 characters

Still to fill in: Intake notes, State and county

RoleYou are a solo practitioner who has run thousands of consultations and turned down more matters than you took. You size a case up in ninety seconds, you calendar the limitations date before you think about the merits, and you do not take a matter because the story is compelling: you take it when the facts, the fee, and your bandwidth all work at once.What I needTriage the Plaintiff personal injury matter in the notes below for filing in State and county, and tell me whether to take it. My practice and rates: Your practice and rates. My capacity right now: Actively looking for work.InputsIntake notes: Intake notes Matter type: Plaintiff personal injury Where it would be filed: State and county My practice and rates: Your practice and rates My bandwidth: Actively looking for workHow to work this1. Open with TAKE, DECLINE, or TAKE WITH CONDITIONS and one sentence of reason; if you cannot call it, name the single fact that would settle it rather than hedging. Then the matter in one paragraph, writing "prospect reports" wherever the prospect is the only source. 2. Build the deadline list from trigger events: the trigger, its date, the period, the computed calendar date, including notice prerequisites like a tort claims act, administrative charge, or statutory demand letter. Where I have not supplied the period, do not supply one from memory: give the trigger date, then "[period UNVERIFIED - confirm the statute, then compute from this date]." 3. For each viable claim: the elements, the fact in the notes supporting each, and the element with nothing under it yet. Same for the two defenses the other side raises first. 4. Every name to run through conflicts: prospect, adverse parties and their entities and DBAs, spouses, employers, insurers, witnesses, referring source. Names, not categories. Then a fee structure with numbers and whether this prospect can pay it, at least one red flag or a statement that you looked, and Actively looking for work weighed against the merits before you finalize the recommendation.Ask me firstBefore you produce anything, ask me these questions, then stop and wait: 1. What is the date of the triggering event (the injury, the breach, the purchase, the termination) and is that date in a document I have seen, or only in the prospect's memory? 2. Has this prospect consulted or hired another lawyer on this matter, and has anything been signed, filed, or served? 3. What can they pay in the next 60 days, and what do they believe the case is worth? Do not begin the memo until I answer. If I tell you to proceed anyway, state each assumption you are making at the top of your output and mark it [ASSUMPTION - verify].Output formatOne page, in this order: recommendation line, the matter, deadlines with trigger and computed date, claims with the missing element flagged, likely defenses, conflicts by name, fee with numbers, capacity, red flags, dated next steps. End with one line naming which of my answers most changed the take-or-decline call and the fee, and what you would have recommended without them. If an answer changed nothing, say so. It means I should not have been asked.Never do this- If this memo would read the same for any prospect walking into any office, it is too generic. It has to be built from the dates and names in these notes. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "the prospect may have a claim," and "this will depend on the facts." Do not tell me to consult an attorney. The prospect already did, and it was me. - Every statute, limitations period, or notice rule must come from my inputs or carry [UNVERIFIED - confirm before calendaring]. Never invent a code section or a filing deadline. A wrong limitations date is a malpractice claim, not a typo. - Where the notes do not tell you something that drives the call (the trigger date, whether a claim was already filed, what the prospect paid) say you do not know and put it in the next-steps list. Do not smooth over the gap with fluent prose. - Do not pad. A clear decline gets six lines and a deadline warning. Length is not value.Before you answer- Is there an actual recommendation in the first line, or did I punt? - Did every limitations and notice period come from my inputs, or is it bracketed [UNVERIFIED]? Bracketing a period I was not given is the right answer, not a shortfall. Supplying one from memory is how a lawyer calendars a wrong date. - Does every deadline still carry its trigger event and that trigger's date, so the lawyer can compute the calendar date the moment they confirm the period? - Is every conflicts entry an actual name? - Would this memo fit a different prospect's file? It should not.

Running it takes you through the three turns (the first prompt, the pressure test, and the follow-up) and a check of the answer, in order. The Cockpit lets you add tunes. Both keep the values you entered. You can change your own copy as you like. It is labeled as yours everywhere it appears.

2

Pressure-test it

Asks the AI to look for weaknesses in its own answer.

This memo is the first document in the malpractice file, if the client ever decides the case was blown. Read this memo as the coverage counsel working it. Name the two intake decisions that create the most exposure: the deadline that was computed from a soft date, the conflict that was never actually run, the scope the client thought was broader than the engagement. Rewrite those sections so the file would defend the lawyer instead of indicting them, and name the one screening question that should have been asked in the consultation and was not.
3

Go deeper

Asks for more detail and further work once the first answer is right.

Either answer (take it or decline it) ends with a letter going out. Draft the two letters this memo implies. If the call is take: the engagement letter's scope and fee paragraphs, stating exactly what is in and out of the representation. If the call is decline: a non-engagement letter that declines clearly, states that no attorney-client relationship was formed, warns of the earliest deadline by date without giving legal advice on it, and refers the prospect to the county bar referral service.
4Check what came backPaste the AI's answer and check it, item by item, against this prompt's rules.

Watch for

  • Blown limitations dates are the most common malpractice claim there is. Confirm every period against the current statute and document the trigger date in the file, whatever this memo says.
  • Run conflicts through your actual system before any substantive work, not off a list in a memo, and not from memory.
  • Keep the intake notes even when you decline. Prospective-client duties attach, the information may be confidential under Rule 1.18, and the file may matter later.
  • Notice prerequisites kill otherwise good cases: governmental tort claims, administrative exhaustion, and statutory demand letters all run on their own clocks. Check whether one applies before relying on the limitations date alone.
  • Everything in intake notes is one side of the story. Nothing in this memo is a fact until a document or a witness confirms it.

What comes back

A one-page memo: TAKE / DECLINE / TAKE WITH CONDITIONS in the first line with a one-sentence reason, the matter in a paragraph, a deadline list showing trigger event and computed date, claims with elements and the unsupported element flagged, likely defenses, a conflicts list by name, a fee recommendation with dollar ranges, capacity and fit, red flags, and dated next steps.

See an example answer
*(After you answer the three questions: the purchase date and the CarFax date are both documented, she consulted another lawyer last week but signed nothing, and she can manage about $1,500 a month and believes the case is worth the car back plus punitives.)* TAKE WITH CONDITIONS: viable consumer-protection and fraud claims with statutory fee-shifting, conditional on a $4,500 pre-suit retainer given the prospect's stated cash constraints. The matter. Prospect reports she bought a 2022 Subaru Outback from Tacoma Motors on August 14, 2025 for $32,400, and that the salesperson represented a clean title and one prior owner. A CarFax report her insurance agent pulled on April 19, 2026 shows two prior accidents (one structural) and a salvage brand later reissued as clean. She returned to the dealer on April 22, 2026 and was refused a refund or replacement. She has the bill of sale; the finance documents are with her credit union. Deadlines: the trigger dates are fixed, the periods are yours to confirm. You did not give me Washington's limitations periods and I will not supply them from memory. Each line is a trigger date plus the arithmetic to run the moment you have the statute open. - Consumer Protection Act - trigger: purchase, August 14, 2025 (bill of sale). Period: [UNVERIFIED - confirm the RCW 19.86 limitations period, then add it to 8/14/2025]. - Breach of express warranty - trigger: tender of delivery, August 14, 2025. Period: [UNVERIFIED - confirm Washington's UCC Article 2 period, and read the bill of sale for a contractual shortening before you rely on it]. - Fraud - trigger: discovery, April 19, 2026, the date the CarFax was pulled. That date is documented, so run the clock from it and not from her recollection of when she "suspected something." Period: [UNVERIFIED - confirm Washington's fraud discovery-rule period]. - Pre-suit notice: confirm whether a CPA claim in Washington carries any pre-suit notice or agency-filing prerequisite. If one exists it runs on its own clock and it is the earliest date on this page, whatever the limitations periods turn out to be. [UNVERIFIED - check this before you calendar anything else.] - Demand letter: May 24, 2026. Your own 30-day practice rule, not a statute. Not jurisdictional, but it fixes the fee-shifting record and dates the dealer's refusal. Claims. - *Consumer Protection Act:* unfair or deceptive act (salvage-history misrepresentation) + trade or commerce (licensed dealer) + public interest + injury + causation. Missing: proof the dealer knew or should have known; pull the auction record. - *Fraud:* misrepresentation, materiality, scienter, reliance, damages. Scienter is the empty element. Everything else is in her account and the bill of sale. - *Revocation of acceptance (UCC 2-608):* substantial impairment, reasonable time, condition unchanged. Confirm she has stopped driving the car; she said she parked it April 22. Likely defenses. (1) The dealer relied on the title document from the auction: meets scienter, does not meet the CPA. (2) An "as-is" clause in the bill of sale: read the actual document before the demand goes out. (3) Continued use after discovery: her April 22 parking date answers this if it holds. Conflicts to run. Maya Okonkwo; Tacoma Motors Inc. and any DBA; Sound Credit Union (lienholder); Subaru of America; Northwest Auto Auction; Dana Okonkwo (spouse, co-signer on the finance contract). Fee. $4,500 flat for the pre-suit phase (records, demand, one mediation session), then 33% contingency plus statutory fees if suit is filed. Realistic total exposure $4,500-$18,000. She said cash is tight: offer three payments of $1,500 over 60 days, first payment before any work begins. Capacity and fit. Squarely in the practice; the pre-suit phase fits this quarter. Reassess before filing. Red flags. She mentioned she "almost went with another lawyer last week": confirm in writing that she signed nothing. Her expectation of a full refund plus punitive damages is off; calibrate at engagement. Next steps. (1) Confirm the four bracketed periods above and calendar them: today, before anything else in this list. (2) Conflicts today. (3) Engagement letter and first $1,500 by Friday. (4) Title history and auction record within 7 days. (5) Demand letter by May 24. What your answers changed. That the April 19 CarFax is a document rather than her recollection is what fixed the fraud trigger date. Had the discovery date rested only on her memory, this would be a decline pending a records subpoena, because the one deadline I cannot help you with would also have had a soft start. Her answer about cash is what turned a straight contingency into a staged $4,500 flat fee. And your answer that she consulted counsel last week but signed nothing is the entire red-flag section. Without it there would be no red flag on this memo at all.
Why this prompt is written this way
## Framework 1. **Lead with the call, then the facts.** TAKE, DECLINE, or TAKE WITH CONDITIONS in the first line with one sentence of reason; hedging across all three is not a triage memo. Restate the matter in plain facts, marking "prospect reports" wherever the prospect is the only source. Everything in intake notes is one-sided until a record confirms it. 2. **Deadlines before merits.** Every limitations period, notice prerequisite, and filing window computed from a named trigger event, earliest first. Where the period was not supplied, bracket it rather than supplying one from memory. "Check the SOL" is not a deadline. 3. **Claims by element, with the hole named.** For each claim: the elements, the fact supporting each, and the element with nothing under it yet. Same treatment for the two defenses you expect. 4. **Conflicts by name, fee with arithmetic, bandwidth in the call.** Prospect, adverse parties and their entities, spouses, employers, insurers, witnesses, referring source. Categories do not run through a conflicts system. Then the fee model with a realistic range and whether this prospect can pay it, at least one red flag or a statement that you looked, and a good case you cannot staff this quarter treated as a referral.