AI Isn’t Just for Redlines: Try These Creative Use Cases for In-House Lawyers

Deep Dive

LLM Use Cases You May Not Have Tried . . . Yet

AI comes up in nearly every conversation I have with other in-house lawyers. We’re all trying to figure it out: how to use it safely and effectively on our teams, what policies to set for the rest of the business, and which tools are worth adopting. It’s a lot.

But this issue of the newsletter zooms in on a narrower, and more practical, question:
How can you use a company-approved large language model (LLM) to make your own legal work better?

The use cases below assume you have access to at least one fully licensed, approved LLM. That might be something general like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot, or a legal-specific model like GCAI.

By now, most of us have tried the basics: summarizing a long commercial contract, generating a first-draft policy, or turning meeting notes into a tidy memo. Those are great starting points—and they save real time.

But the ideas in this issue go further. They’re creative, outside-the-box ways to use LLMs to improve your thinking, increase your influence, and add more value. Not just faster, but smarter.

Quick refresher: LLM stands for large language model—a type of AI trained on massive amounts of text to understand and generate language. LLMs can answer questions, summarize documents, draft content, and even help you reason through complex problems.

1. Use AI to tailor your emails for specific people

Most of us work with a mix of personalities. Personally, I work closely with two senior leaders who don’t want to read more than a sentence—and two others who want it all: the context, the nuance, the logic behind every legal position.

When I write emails, I already adjust for those preferences. But lately, I’ve taken it one step further: I use AI to intentionally tailor my emails for each recipient.

There are two simple ways to do it:

First, you can use a tailored prompt.

You can copy and paste this prompt into your preferred LLM tool to help revise any email before sending. Note that there may be times when you need or want highly structured prompts; in my experience, for this context, something like the one below works just fine.

Second, you can build a custom GPT

If you’re using a platform that supports it (like ChatGPT), you can create a custom GPT with this prompt built in. That way, you don’t have to paste the prompt every time; you just drop in your draft and let the model revise it instantly. You can even teach your GPT what ‘great’ looks like by uploading sample emails that hit the mark.

It’s a small change, but it creates a big impact: your messages become clearer, faster to read, and better received by the people who matter most.

If you don’t have this option, just go with the first one. I use custom GPTs for my own purposes, but don’t have the option at work.

2. Repurpose your best work product . . .like an influencer.

Influencers are masters at repackaging one great piece of content across multiple platforms. You can do the same with your legal work.

Say you created a strong training deck on the role of the board. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time that topic comes up, feed the deck into your LLM and ask it to generate:

• A short summary email for execs

• A plain-language FAQ for new board members

• A polished report documenting what training the board has received

When you're starting with your own work product, the output is usually both stronger and faster than starting from scratch. Just be sure to review and edit with your judgment before hitting send. As we know, AI makes factual mistakes and may not always get the tone, risk tolerance, or other nuances right.

Strategically amplifying your work with AI makes it more accessible and frees up your time for the next high-impact task.

3. Use AI as a sounding board for tough judgment calls.

In-house lawyers constantly navigate competing priorities—speed vs. risk, compliance vs. culture, legal ideal vs. business reality.

AI can be a surprisingly effective thought partner when you need to think through the tradeoffs. It shouldn’t replace conversations with your team, but it can provide different perspectives.

You can prompt your LLM to:

• Act as devil’s advocate and challenge your assumptions

• Take on the role of a junior lawyer and help outline your reasoning

• Respond as a regulator, surfacing what they might flag or prioritize

• Even simulate your CEO’s perspective, based on how they’ve spoken in town halls, internal memos, or strategy decks

Just feed in the relevant materials and frame the question. You’ll still use your judgment; but AI can help surface angles you hadn’t considered and make your decision-making more deliberate and well-rounded.

The key is to keep experimenting.

These are just three of the many creative ways you can use AI to become a more efficient, strategic, and impactful in-house lawyer.

Just like templates, playbooks, and checklists free you up to focus on high-value work, AI can do the same. But its value multiplies when you use it not just to save time, but to sharpen your thinking, tailor your communication, and extend the reach of your best ideas.

Remember: AI is not Google 2.0. It’s an entirely new (set of) tools.

Start small. Try one new use case this week. Then build from there. The more you experiment, the more you’ll discover how AI can help you practice law in a smarter, more modern way.

And if you’ve found a creative or unique way to use AI effectively in your in-house work, I’d love to hear about it—just hit reply and share.