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Plain-English a court order for the client

Turns a ruling into a sendable client email that leads with the result, converts every procedural term into a consequence, and ends with one dated ask.

About 8 minstarterLitigation

Your prompt4,686 characters

Still to fill in: Order text, Case, Your client, Court

RoleYou are a litigator who has sat with clients while they read an order and drew exactly the wrong conclusion from the first paragraph. You lead with the result, you translate every procedural term into a consequence, and you refuse to let a partial loss disappear inside a friendly summary.What I needTurn the order below in Case into an update Your client can absorb in sixty seconds, pitched for Individual client, first lawsuit. It comes out of Court, whose rules control any deadline you flag.InputsOrder: Order text Case: Case Client: Your client Court: Court Who is reading this: Individual client, first lawsuitHow to work this1. Score the order before writing, then open with one sentence stating the result and naming who got what. "The court denied Acme's motion to dismiss in full" is a headline; "the court has now ruled" is a topic, and it fails. Partial relief gets itemized: each piece, and which side won it. A split ruling is never summarized as a win. 2. Three sections and stop: What happened / What it means / What's next. Every procedural term becomes a consequence: "granted with leave to amend" is "this claim is out for now, but they get 21 days to file a corrected version." 3. Pull every date, dollar figure, and page or word limit into "What's next," each attached to the event it governs, naming the trigger where a deadline runs from one. Any appeal, objection, or reconsideration window the order opened or closed gets its day count marked [VERIFY DEADLINE]; it turns on Court's rules and a docket entry date you cannot see. 4. Exactly one ask, carrying a date. If two things are needed, send the one that blocks the case and hold the other.Close with these four sections, every time, without being askedPut these under a line reading "Internal notes, not for the client" so I can cut them before sending. Assumptions I made. Every factual, procedural, and strategic assumption behind the summary. Mark each [verify] or [safe]. If you inferred a trigger date, a day count, or what the court meant by ambiguous language, it goes here. Where this is weakest. The two or three sentences most likely to mislead this client or be overtaken by the next filing. Name the sentence, not "the summary generally." What only you can decide. The calls I deliberately left to you, each as options with tradeoffs. At minimum: whether to put the settlement implications of this ruling in writing: in the email the client gets a clear read but may forward it anywhere, while saving it for a call keeps the record clean and risks the client acting before you speak. Also yours: how blunt to be about a partial loss with this particular client, and whether to name the appeal option now or after you have priced it. What would make this materially better. The specific thing from me that would sharpen the next pass: the docket sheet with entry dates, the scheduling order, what I already told this client to expect, or the prior update they received. Rank by impact.Output formatA sendable email. Subject line that carries the result, not just the case name. Then the headline sentence, What happened, What it means (practical effect), What's next (bullets, each with a date), and What we need from you (one ask with a deadline). Then the internal notes block.Never do this- If this update would read the same for any client who received any order, it is too generic. Rebuild it from what this order actually decided. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "it should be noted," "it depends," and "we will continue to monitor developments." Do not tell the reader to consult an attorney. You are writing for the attorney. - Every deadline, dollar figure, and holding must come from the order I pasted or be marked [UNVERIFIED - check the docket]. Never invent a date, a page cite, or a quotation from the order. - Where the order is genuinely ambiguous about what it decided, say you do not know and tell me which paragraph to read myself. Do not smooth over the gap with fluent prose. - Do not pad. A one-line docket order gets a four-sentence email. Length is not value.Before you answer- Does the subject line tell the client the outcome without opening the email? - Did I translate every procedural term, or did "without prejudice" survive untranslated? - Is there exactly one ask, and does it carry a date? - If the client won part and lost part, is the loss stated as plainly as the win? - Would this email be useless to a client in a different case? It should be.

Adds driver's-seat tunes: options instead of answers, questions before work, every citation flagged. Your values come with it.

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

Everything the CEO knows about this order will come from the subject line and the first three sentences, before the whole thing goes to the board chair. Read it as the CEO. Is the result unmistakable in those three sentences, and does anything further down contradict the impression the top creates? Rewrite the top so the skimmed version and the full version tell the same story, and flag any sentence you would not want forwarded outside the company.

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

Two people need this order in different forms: the client on the phone, the paralegal at the calendar. Produce both follow-ons from the same order: a 30-second voicemail script that delivers the result out loud without legalese, and a docketing note for the paralegal listing every deadline this order created, each with its trigger event and the rule or local rule it runs under.

Before you run it

What to gather first

The full order, including any footnotes and the ordering paragraphs at the end
The court and judge, so appeal and objection windows can be flagged accurately
How sophisticated this client is about litigation: first lawsuit or twentieth
Whether the client already received an update predicting a different result
The scheduling order, so "What's next" lines up with dates already on the calendar

Watch for

Deadline arithmetic is where this fails. Appeal, objection, and reconsideration windows depend on the entry date, the rule set, and local practice. Recompute every date against the docket before the email goes out.
Never let a partial win read as a full win. Clients remember the first email, and the correction costs more credibility than the bad news would have.
Client emails are not privileged in every direction. If the client forwards it to a spouse, a broker, or a business partner, the protection may be gone. Write knowing that.
The model reads only what you paste. Footnotes and the ordering paragraphs at the end often carry the operative directives and the deadlines.
Settlement leverage commentary in writing can surface later. Decide deliberately whether it belongs in the email or in a call.

What comes back

A sendable email: subject line carrying the result, a one-sentence headline, then What happened / What it means / What's next (bullets with dates) / What we need from you (one dated ask). Below a divider, an internal block with assumptions, the weakest sentences, the calls left to you as options with tradeoffs, and what would improve the next pass.

See an example of what you’ll get

Subject: Smith v. Acme; court denied Acme's motion to dismiss on three of four claims; discovery opens now Judge Arterton ruled on April 15. Three of your four claims survive and the case moves into discovery; the intentional-infliction claim was dismissed. What happened. Acme asked the court to throw out the entire complaint before any evidence was exchanged. The court refused as to your Title VII retaliation, FLSA overtime, and breach-of-contract claims, holding each was pleaded with enough detail to proceed (Order at 8–14). It dismissed the emotional-distress claim, finding the alleged conduct did not meet Connecticut's "extreme and outrageous" standard (Order at 15–16). That dismissal is with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. What it means. This is a good result. The three claims that carry your actual damages (back pay, unpaid overtime, and the unvested bonus) all survived. Acme must now produce documents and put witnesses under oath, which it spent four months trying to avoid. The emotional-distress claim was always the thinnest of the four and carried no separate damages we were counting on. What's next. - Acme's answer is due April 29 (14 days from the order). - Rule 26(f) conference: we will propose the week of May 5. - Initial disclosures: 14 days after that conference. - Our first document requests go out the same week. - Trial date remains January 12, 2026. What we need from you. Please confirm your settlement authority range by Friday, May 2, before Acme's CHRO is deposed. Once that deposition happens, the number moves in one direction or the other and the window to settle quietly closes. Internal notes, not for the client Assumptions I made. The 14-day answer deadline assumes Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(a)(4)(A) runs from the April 15 entry date [VERIFY DEADLINE - confirm the docket entry, not the signature date]. I assumed the IIED dismissal was with prejudice because the order says "dismissed" without leave language [verify - pages 15–16 are ambiguous]. I assumed the January 12 trial date is unchanged [verify against the scheduling order]. Where this is weakest. The sentence "this is a good result" will be the one the client quotes back if the case later goes badly. It is defensible but it is a characterization, not a holding. Second: "carried no separate damages we were counting on" is my judgment about case value, not the court's. What only you can decide. Whether the settlement-authority ask goes in this email at all. Sending it now gets you a number before the CHRO deposition and keeps momentum, but it puts a written settlement discussion in the client's inbox where it may be forwarded. Raising it by phone instead protects the record and lets you read the client's reaction, at the cost of a few days you may not have. Also yours: whether to tell the client now that the IIED dismissal is unappealable, or wait until they ask. What would make this materially better. (1) The docket sheet with the actual entry date, which fixes every deadline above. (2) The scheduling order, to confirm the trial date and any deadline that moved. (3) What you told this client to expect in March: if you predicted a full denial, the framing of the IIED loss needs to change.

Why this prompt is built the way it is

## Framework 1. **Score the order first, then lead with the result.** Partial relief gets itemized (each piece, and which side got it) because a split ruling is never summarized as a win. The opening sentence names who won what: "the court denied Acme's motion in full" is a headline; "the court has ruled" is not. 2. **Three sections, then stop, with procedural terms turned into consequences.** What happened / What it means / What's next; a fourth idea belongs in a phone call. "Granted with leave to amend" is "the claim is out for now, but they get 21 days to refile a corrected version." 3. **Harvest every number and flag every clock.** Dates, dollars, page limits, each attached to the event it governs, with the trigger named where a deadline runs from one. Any appeal, objection, or reconsideration window gets its day count marked for verification against the docket. 4. **One ask, with a date.** If two things are needed, send the one that blocks the case and hold the other.