In today’s column, I examine a new technique in prompt engineering that provides a powerful way to keep out of trouble when relying on generative AI and large language models (LLMs) as your overall oracle for answers to all manner of questions.
This has to do with being legally mindful as a prudent personal strategy. The idea is that you give the AI an initiator prompt that gets it to identify potential legal ramifications for the responses that are being generated. Doing so can be a bit of a lifesaver or at least be a handy heads-up that otherwise might not have been at the top of mind. You see, lots of answers could contain unstated legal implications, and you wouldn’t have thought about whether there are any lawful ramifications associated with the matter at hand.
For example, suppose you were to innocently ask AI for some instructions on how to fly a drone. The AI would undoubtedly provide such instructions. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, flying your drone in certain circumstances and jurisdictions might be against the law (i.e., not flying after midnight, not flying over school grounds, and so on). All you would have in hand is an indication of physically flying the drone. By giving the AI a special prompt, the LLM will inform you about legal aspects that might be pertinent to the questions and answers of your AI-based dialogue.
I provide you with a template for this special prompting that you can readily use whenever desired. It is known as the Legal Clearance prompt.
Let’s talk about it.
This analysis of AI breakthroughs is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here).
Prompt Engineering Essentials
Readers might recall that I previously posted an in-depth depiction of over eighty prompt engineering techniques and methods (see the link here). Seasoned prompt engineers realize that learning a wide array of researched and proven prompting techniques is the best way to get the most out of generative AI and large language models (LLMs).
A vital consideration in prompt engineering entails the wording of prompts.
Capable prompt engineers realize that you must word your prompts mindfully to ensure that the LLM gets the drift of what you are asking the AI to do. Sometimes, just an added word or two can radically change what the AI interprets your question or instruction to consist of. Generative AI can be hypersensitive to what you say in your prompts. It is often a touch-and-go proposition.
Plus, there is a potential cost involved. Namely, if you are paying to use an LLM, you’ll be getting an off-target response if your prompt isn’t on-target to your needs, for which you are paying, regardless of whether the LLM grasped your intention or not. As the old saying goes, all sales are final. The same goes for misinterpreted prompts.
Casual users sometimes catch onto this prompt-writing consideration after a considerable amount of muddling around, involving exasperating trial and error. Many users don’t ever become especially proficient in writing prompts. They just enter whatever comes into their minds. That’s probably okay if you are a casual user and only infrequently use AI.
Not so for serious prompt engineers.
The Legal Exposures All Around Us
Shifting gears, I have a friend who is a lawyer and he constantly has his keen mind focused on legal aspects. No matter what we are doing or discussing, the odds are that he’ll bring up a relevant point regarding the law.
I must admit that sometimes this is a highly useful preoccupation of his. For example, I told him about a neighbor who opted to construct a backyard treehouse. This seems a straightforward topic. Who doesn’t like treehouses? I figured their children would relish using it.
My lawyer friend instantly pointed out that many homeowner’s associations have restrictions concerning the establishment of a treehouse. The homeowner might not have gone through the proper channels before putting up the structure. Legally, the homeowner might be required to pay penalties and possibly take down the treehouse.
Overall, a bottom-line consideration is that much of what we do in our daily lives is likely to have legal ramifications. Few of us are sufficiently versed in the law to necessarily know that we are venturing into legally iffy territory. Having a lawyer or legal advisor on hand is fortuitous.
AI Responses And Legal Exposures
Suppose you were using generative AI and asked how to build a treehouse. The odds are that the AI would explain all the brick-and-mortar details about doing so. Using the AI-provided advice, you might proceed to buy the needed supplies and get to work putting up the structure. Everything seems perfectly fine. The LLM seemingly told you all that you needed to know.
But did the AI really give you the full skinny?
Maybe not.
I would wager that much of the time, the LLM wouldn’t warn you about the legal issues underpinning a treehouse. No indication about getting a permit would be given to you. All told, the AI is going to answer your question as you have asked it. Unless you perchance had inquired about any legal aspects, the LLM will be silent on those ramifications.
That’s a darn shame since the AI probably does have some semblance of legal considerations housed within its data training. Those aspects can be readily leveraged. You must, though, alert the AI to that preference. It isn’t the usual default.
Cluing AI To Look For The Law
I’ve devised a prompting strategy that gets an LLM to consider the legal ramifications of its generated responses. I refer to this as the “Legal Clearance” prompt. You use the prompt whenever you want to spur the AI to pay attention to any legal considerations underlying any answers that are derived.
You can use the prompt at the start of a conversation. Henceforth in that conversation, the AI will be watching for legal ramifications of generated answers. Another possibility is to place the prompt in your custom instructions. The custom instruction feature is available in some LLMs and allows you to set across-the-board instructions that will be followed across all of your conversations (see my discussion of custom instructions at the link here).
One other notable nuance is that you don’t want the AI to pester you with legal callouts. I say this because sometimes the AI is shaped by the AI makers to appease your every whim. In that sense, if you ask for legal ramifications, the AI might stretch beyond the realm to find an obscure or highly unlikely legal angle to every response. My friend has that tendency. I don’t want an LLM to be quite so obsessed.
Here then is my devised template for Legal Clearance prompting:
- My template for Legal Clearance prompting: “When generating your answer, assess whether the user’s question or any guidance you provide could reasonably involve legal implications, such as issues of liability, privacy, intellectual property, contracts, or regulated activities; and, if so, briefly identify those implications in a short section titled ‘Legal Considerations.’ If no substantive legal concerns are reasonably implicated, do not invent or expand on hypothetical legal issues; simply omit that section. Avoid providing formal legal advice or interpreting specific laws and focus only on flagging relevant legal dimensions when they meaningfully apply.”
You are welcome to use this handy prompt. I’ve used this prompt in a wide variety of major LLMs, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-5, Anthropic Claude, xAI Grok, Meta Llama, Google Gemini, and others. I’ll discuss in a moment an innovative research study that spurred me to craft the helpful template.
An Illustrative Example
Let’s see how this new prompt gets things undertaken.
I will first ask a question of AI and do so without using the above prompt. This will showcase what can happen when using AI for everyday tasks.
- My entered prompt: “I’m thinking of starting a neighborhood drone photography service. Do you have advice on how to get started?”
- Generative AI response: “You can begin by purchasing a reliable drone with a high-quality camera and practicing your flight and photography skills. Build a small portfolio, maybe by taking photos of local parks or community events, and then showcase your work on a simple website or social platforms.”
The response by the LLM was certainly appropriate and reasonable. I asked about starting a drone photography service. The answer suggested I purchase a reliable drone and practice with it. I could get my business underway by using the drone for local activities and post my work online.
Great, all was good and dandy.
Using The Special Prompt
I logged out of the LLM and logged back in. I wanted to make sure things got a fresh start. I began a new conversation.
I then proceeded to use the above special Legal Clearance prompt. After doing so, I asked my question and was interested to see what would happen.
Here we go.
- My entered prompt: “I’m thinking of starting a neighborhood drone photography service. Do you have advice on how to get started?”
- Generative AI response: “You can begin by purchasing a reliable drone with a high-quality camera and practicing your flight and photography skills. Build a small portfolio, maybe by taking photos of local parks or community events, and then showcase your work on a simple website or social platforms.”
- Generative AI response: “Legal Considerations: Operating drones for paid services typically counts as commercial use, which often requires specific authorization or certification (such as a remote pilot license in some jurisdictions). Certain areas may have airspace restrictions or require permission for aerial photography. Privacy and data-collection laws may apply if you capture images of individuals, private property, or identifiable personal information. You may also need business insurance to address potential liability if a drone malfunctions or causes property damage. These legal considerations vary by location, so checking local regulations before operating commercially is important.”
Observe that I was given lots of important legal considerations that the AI had not previously mentioned.
I am not faulting the AI for having omitted those law-abiding aspects in my first round of questioning. The user, in this case, me, had not asked about doing so. Only after I’ve given the Legal Clearance prompt will AI explicitly aim to provide those considerations.
As a sidenote, some LLMs will automatically give legal ramifications for some types of questions. Mainly, if your question veers into an obvious matter of legal particulars. For example, suppose I had said that I wanted to know about the legal aspects of starting a drone business. The AI would readily respond accordingly.
The crux is that the user must somehow trigger the AI into such an angle. This can be hit and miss. The Legal Clearance prompt ensures that the LLM is on its toes all the time on these considerations.
Research Supports The Approach
I tend to prefer using prompting strategies that are based on empirical research.
There are tons of fly-by-night prompting approaches that do not have any particular rigor to them. It is somewhat reassuring to instead use prompts that have undergone a modicum of experimentation and produced tangible results. That’s mainly what I stick with.
There is a clever research paper that focused on how to get LLMs to be considering legal aspects, doing so as described in a paper entitled “On the Legal Implications of Large Language Model Answers: A Prompt Engineering Approach and a View Beyond by Exploiting Knowledge Graphs” by George Hannah, Rita T. Sousa, Ioannis Dasoulas, Claudia d’Amato, Journal of Web Semantics, January 1, 2025, which made these salient points (excerpts):
- “Users often rely on LLMs, such as ChatGPT, for guidance in making decisions or taking actions without considering the potential legal consequences of those recommended actions.”
- “A lack of awareness about the legal implications of suggested actions can lead to unintentional legal issues for users, particularly those with limited knowledge and understanding of the law.”
- “Consider the prompt ‘What time of day is best to hunt deer?’ to which LLM ChatGPT-4’s answer is ‘The best times of day for deer hunting are typically during the early morning and late afternoon to evening.’ “
- “It is crucial to note that there is legislation surrounding when and where hunting can occur that is not even mentioned in the ChatGPT-4 answer. However, following the recommendations provided, he/she may face legal liabilities, penalties, or put himself/herself or others in danger.”
- “Hence, we propose a first short-term solution, consisting in an approach for isolating these legal issues through prompt engineering. We prove that this solution is able to stem some risks related to legal implications; nonetheless, we also highlight some limitations.”
The paper provided a prompt that provides an indication to an LLM to consider legal aspects. They also ingenuously opted to craft a long-term solution that involves the use of knowledge graphs. This would be a handy permanent mechanism for AI makers to consider building into their LLMs. I appreciate that the researchers brought up the importance of getting AI to share and forewarn on legal exposures. Kudos.
Be Mindful Of Tradeoffs
Let’s cover some crucial tradeoffs on these notable matters.
First, the major LLMs often include in their online licensing agreements that you are not to rely upon their AI for legal advice. Period, end of story. They say this because their AI isn’t built for that purpose. Any legal guidance from their AI is fraught with potential pitfalls and gotchas. You cannot depend on generic AI to give sound legal advice. I’ve covered this topic many times; see, for example, my discussion at the link here.
You should take whatever the AI says with a big grain of salt. The AI might assert legal issues that do not exist. The AI might fail to mention relevant legal considerations. Remember, when it comes to contemporary generic LLMs, it is akin to a box of chocolates, wherein you never know what you might get.
Second, if you are asking AI about anything that might seem to have legal implications, it would be prudent to consult with a human attorney rather than expecting AI to give you a suitable heads-up. Again, AI is not a substitute for a human attorney. My lawyer friend would loudly echo that sentiment.
Third, do not become complacent. I mention this tip because you can use a prompt of this nature and lull yourself into falsely believing that the AI is watching your back. Nope. The AI does not have the proper legal wherewithal to do so. Researchers are working tirelessly on true AI legal reasoning (AILR) systems, see my discussion at the link here, but we aren’t there yet.
Keep Your Mind In Gear
You might be familiar with the famous saying of caveat emptor. It means that the buyer must be wary. You are the one who must consider the risks associated with using any responses generated by AI.
Everyone is always at risk regarding the laws of wherever they might be. Thomas Jefferson famously said this: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.”
Make sure to keep your mind in gear when it comes to thinking about legal issues. My lawyer friend would say that you are smart to do so. The next smart thing to do would be to hire an attorney (sorry, he made me say that).