For a small firm, document preparation is one of the best places to start with AI — and one of the most rewarding. Drafting engagement letters, demand letters, retainer agreements, and routine contracts takes up a surprising amount of time, and AI can cut that time dramatically.

Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot can take a plain-English description from you and return a solid working draft in seconds. You review it, adjust it, and it's ready to go. No more starting from a blank page.

The key to getting good results is being specific with your instructions. Instead of asking for "a fee agreement," try something like: "Draft a contingency fee agreement for a personal injury case in Louisiana with a 33% fee and a clause covering case expenses." The more detail you give, the more useful the output. Over time, you can save your best prompts and reuse them — essentially building a personalized drafting assistant for your practice.

Just keep one rule front of mind: always review what AI produces before it goes to a client or a court. AI is a starting point, not a finished product. Used that way, it's one of the simplest upgrades a small firm can make.

Prepared by Matt King. Some of the content in this post has been summarized by Claude.