Large language models (LLM), like ChatGPT & Claude, are trained on vast amounts of text, so they can generate human-like text based on the prompts you give them.
Prompt engineering is all about crafting smart and effective questions or 'prompts' that guide these AI tools to give you the best possible answers or outcomes.
However, the better your question, the better their answer can be.
Whilst a full template for writing a good prompt will be shared this page, it is quintessential to ensure your prompts are providing:
Clarity
Context
Instruction
Specificity
to ChatGPT.
A 'Bad' Prompt
Draft a partnership agreement for a business.
You might look at this prompt and think – "looks good to me". Well its not.
Let's break it down and discuss why.
Problem 1 - Not Specific Enough
The more guidance you provide to the AI, the better the results.
There is no clarity, context, nor specificity here. The annotations below showcase what is missing for starters.
Draft a partnership agreement for a business
^ |________| ^|________| ^|________|
(limited partnership
or general partnership?) (What type of Which jurisdiction?
business?) Be explicit:
- England and Wales?
- Scotland?
- Northern Ireland?
- Germany?
- USA (if so which state)?
Lists of partners and their roles
- ...
- ...
Profit sharing ratios
- ...
Is the partnership for a fixed term or ongoing?
Problem 2 - Lack of Context
Context is everything here; partnership agreements vary widely based on the nature of business, the roles of the partners, the jurisdiction, and more!
Why is it so important?
Your responses become more:
Specific - The model can generate a response that's more specific and detailed, as it has more information to draw from.
Relevant - The AI model has a better understanding of what you're asking and can therefore generate a response that's more closely aligned with your needs.
Consistent - More context helps the model maintain consistency across longer conversations or documents, ensuring that the generated text logically follows from the prior content.
Draft a partnership agreement for a business.
^|________|
Jurisdiction is still not mentioned
The partnership is between John Smith and Mark Johnson and involves running a tech
^|_________________________|
Parties are mentioned
startup focused on software development.
^|_____________________________________|
Type of business discussed
John Smith is contributing £50,000 in capital, while Mark Johnson is contributing her expertise and time.
The profit-sharing ratio is 60:40 in favor of John Smith.
^|_____________________________________|
Profit-sharing ratio disclosed
The partnership is ongoing with no fixed term.
^|_____________________________________|
Type of partnership disclosed
Problem 3 - Hallucination
There's a fundamental problem with our original prompt.
Draft a partnership agreement for a business.
|_________________| |____|
↓ ↓
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Different jurisdictions have different legal frameworks for partnerships.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The requirements for partnership agreements can vary significantly wordlwide.
The AI might not alert us to these differences and could produce an agreement that is not fully compliant with the specific legal requirements of the jurisdiction.
For example, here is the output that ChatGPT produced when quizzed with our initial prompt.
This Partnership Agreement ("Agreement") is made and entered into as of the ___ day of _____, 20, by and between John Smith ("Partner 1") and Mark Johnson ("Partner 2"), collectively referred to as the "Partners."
1. Partnership Formation
The Partners hereby form a partnership ("Partnership") for the purposes and upon the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement.
2. Partnership Name
The business of the Partnership shall be conducted under the name _______________________ or such other name as the Partners may agree upon.
3. Purpose
The purpose of the Partnership is to engage in the business of _______________________ and any other lawful business activities that the Partners may agree upon.
4. Principal Place of Business
The principal office and place of business of the Partnership shall be located at _______________________, or at such other place as the Partners may designate.
5. Term
The Partnership shall commence on the date first written above and shall continue until terminated as provided in this Agreement.
6. Capital Contributions
Each Partner shall contribute to the capital of the Partnership as follows:
John Smith: $__________
Mark Johnson: $__________
Additional capital contributions may be made by the Partners as agreed upon.
7. Profit and Loss Allocation
Profits and losses of the Partnership shall be shared equally by the Partners.
Distributions of profits shall be made at such times and in such amounts as the Partners may agree.
8. Management and Duties
The management and control of the Partnership shall be vested in the Partners equally.
Each Partner shall have authority to act on behalf of the Partnership in the ordinary course of business.
Major decisions, including but not limited to borrowing funds, selling assets, or entering into contracts exceeding $__________, shall require the unanimous consent of the Partners.
9. Withdrawal of a Partner
A Partner may withdraw from the Partnership at any time upon giving at least sixty (60) days' written notice to the other Partner.
The withdrawing Partner shall be entitled to receive an amount equal to their capital account balance and any undistributed profits.
10. Dissolution
The Partnership shall be dissolved upon the occurrence of any of the following events:
Mutual agreement of the Partners.
Withdrawal, bankruptcy, or death of a Partner.
Any other event that makes it unlawful or impractical to carry on the business of the Partnership.
Upon dissolution, the Partnership's assets shall be liquidated, and the proceeds shall be used to pay all Partnership liabilities. The remaining assets, if any, shall be distributed to the Partners in accordance with their respective capital accounts.
11. Accounting and Records
Proper and complete books of account of the Partnership's business shall be maintained at the Partnership's principal place of business.
Each Partner shall have access to and may inspect and copy any of the Partnership's books and records.
12. Meetings
Regular meetings of the Partners shall be held at least _______________________.
Special meetings may be called by any Partner upon giving reasonable notice to the other Partner.
13. Arbitration
Any dispute arising out of or related to this Agreement shall be resolved by binding arbitration in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association.
14. Governing Law
This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of _______________________.
15. Miscellaneous
This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the Partners and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings.
This Agreement may be amended only by a written instrument signed by both Partners.
If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue to be valid and enforceable.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the Partners have executed this Agreement as of the date first above written.
John Smith (Partner 1)
Mark Johnson (Partner 2)
This is an example of "hallucination." It refers to a situation where the AI generates information that seems plausible but is actually made up or not based on facts.
In this case, this agreement is vague and non-binding in any jurisdiction.
The Secret Formula to a Good Prompt
A helpful tool to writing a good prompt is following our 'Prompt Burger' template, which you can also remember as ICQ.
Instruction
Context
Query
Remember the bad prompt above?
Draft a partnership agreement for a business.
Let's rewrite it with this new structure.
You are a contract lawyer drafting partnership agreements and other legal contracts.
Your work is strictly based on the legal requirements of different parts of the UK.
When asked to draft legal contracts that are jurisdiction-specific, make sure to
reference the relevant legal frameworks. If such frameworks do not exist, reply by
saying "I cannot complete this request due to regulatory uncertainty" and nothing else.
Only include the resulting output in your response. Exclude legal disclaimers, preamble,
and any reasoning in your response. The clients are John Smith and Mark Johnson.
Their business is called Tech Innovators LLP. I have attached the information that you
may require to draft the partnership agreement, as well as their business plan.
Draft a partnership agreement for Tech Innovators LLP and make a downloadable Word Docx
document for me that contains this agreement.
Let's break it down.
Instruction (top bun)
You are a contract lawyer drafting partnership agreements and other legal contracts.
Your work is strictly based on the legal requirements of different parts of the UK.
When asked to draft legal contracts that are jurisdiction-specific, make sure to
reference the relevant legal frameworks. If such frameworks do not exist, reply by
saying "I cannot complete this request due to regulatory uncertainty" and nothing else.
Only include the resulting output in your response. Exclude legal disclaimers, preamble,
and any reasoning in your response.
We have used instruction words to tell ChatGPT:
Who they should act as
What jurisdiction to focus solely on
What to avoid outputting
Context (the filling)
The clients are John Smith and Mark Johnson.
Their business is called Tech Innovators LLP. I have attached the information that you
may require to draft the partnership agreement, as well as their business plan.
++{{and the attachments files}}++
We have told ChatGPT:
The name of the parties
Their business
The types of documents we are attaching and exactly what they are
Here are the documents we attached:
Query (bottom bun)
Draft a partnership agreement for Tech Innovators LLP and make a downloadable
Word Docx document for me that contains this agreement.
We have been explicit with ChatGPT and told it exactly what we want, now that it knows how to answer what we want.
The Output
As we requested the document to be outputted in Docx format, ChatGPT provided the following via a downloadable link:
Whilst not perfect, and certainly in need of tweaking, you can either:
Manually tweak this document to your liking
Let ChatGPT know what you are not happy with within the text, formatting etc
Prompt Banking
You will cover prompts for your specific needs across this course, however it is important to create a prompt bank with your team to establish and save the best, tried and tested prompts for each function at your firm.
Whilst we will correct the original prompt with something better in section, here is an example of providing more context to ChatGPT.
This would be considered an 'ok' amount of context, however in our we provide a lot more.
We discuss how to counteract hallucination in the .
