How to Prompt Engineer for Lawyers: Get Better AI Contract Reviews

Introduction

AI contract review tools are revolutionizing how lawyers analyze agreements, identify risks, and ensure compliance. But getting the best results from AI isn’t just about using the tool—it’s about knowing how to prompt it effectively.

Lawyers who understand prompt engineering can significantly improve the quality of AI-driven contract analysis, making reviews faster, more precise, and more actionable. In this guide, we’ll break down how lawyers can master prompt engineering to get better AI contract reviews every time.

🚀 Want to see AI contract review in action? Download our Microsoft Word AI contract review add-in now and start testing these strategies today!

What Is Prompt Engineering?

Prompt engineering is the art of crafting precise instructions for an AI system to generate the most relevant and useful responses. Instead of providing vague, general inputs, well-structured prompts allow AI to:

✅ Identify key legal risks with more accuracy
✅ Provide clearer contract analysis and recommendations
✅ Ensure consistency in contract review across agreements

By fine-tuning prompts, lawyers can steer AI’s outputs to match specific legal needs, improving efficiency and reducing errors.

Why Lawyers Need Prompt Engineering Skills

AI isn’t perfect. It requires context, clarity, and specificity to generate meaningful contract insights. Without well-structured prompts, AI may:

❌ Misinterpret legal nuances
❌ Provide generic or irrelevant feedback
❌ Miss important contract risks

Mastering prompt engineering helps lawyers take control of AI-driven contract reviews, ensuring that AI aligns with legal best practices and negotiation strategies.

Key Principles of Legal Prompt Engineering

1. Be Specific with Legal Context

🛑 Poor Prompt: “Analyze this contract.”
✅ Better Prompt: “Identify missing confidentiality and indemnity provisions in this SaaS agreement.”

AI needs context. Clearly state what contract type you’re reviewing and which clauses or risks to focus on.

2. Use Precise Legal Terminology

AI responds better to legal jargon and structured phrasing.

🛑 Instead of saying: “Find risks in this agreement.”
✅ Try: “Highlight provisions that expose liability risks, uncapped indemnities, and unilateral termination rights.”

The more legal precision you provide, the better the AI will understand what to flag.

3. Request Clause-Specific Analysis

Instead of general contract reviews, lawyers can use AI for targeted analysis:

• Payment Terms: “Assess whether the payment terms align with industry standards and include clear late payment penalties.”
• Governing Law & Jurisdiction: “Identify inconsistencies in the governing law and dispute resolution provisions.”
• Termination Rights: “Highlight any provisions that allow unilateral termination without reasonable notice.”

This granular prompting allows AI to focus on specific contract areas, improving review efficiency.

4. Compare Against Market Standards

AI tools can benchmark contract language against industry norms. To leverage this:

✅ “Compare the indemnification clause in this MSA to market-standard indemnity provisions.”
✅ “Does this NDA include a reasonable non-compete period compared to industry norms?”

This ensures contracts align with best practices, reducing unnecessary redlining.

5. Structure Prompts for Playbook-Driven Reviews

If your legal team follows contract playbooks, AI can enforce compliance:

✅ “Check if this agreement complies with our playbook’s preferred dispute resolution mechanism.”
✅ “Identify any deviations from our standard MSA indemnification limits.”

This helps automate contract reviews, ensuring consistency across agreements.

Advanced Prompt Engineering for Contract Review

Once you master basic prompts, you can create multi-step AI interactions to get even better results.

1. Chain Prompts for Progressive Review

Instead of one long prompt, break down AI tasks:

1️⃣ “Identify missing or vague provisions in this contract.”
2️⃣ “Suggest standard language to improve these provisions.”
3️⃣ “Redline the contract to incorporate these changes.”

This step-by-step prompting leads to more structured and accurate AI responses.

2. Test and Refine Your Prompts

Like any legal skill, AI prompt engineering improves with iteration. If AI results aren’t useful, refine your approach:

• If AI is missing key risks, adjust prompts to explicitly state which provisions to check.
• If AI is too generic, ask it to provide “detailed legal analysis with examples.”
• If AI suggests unreasonable terms, request “market-standard alternatives based on industry data.”

Conclusion: Take Your AI Contract Reviews to the Next Level

AI is only as good as the prompts you give it. By applying prompt engineering techniques, lawyers can transform AI from a basic tool into a powerful legal assistant.

🚀 Want to see how prompt engineering improves AI contract review? Download our Microsoft Word AI contract review add-in and start prompting like a pro today!