One of the most common barriers to AI adoption at law firms isn’t skepticism — it’s the blank page. Attorneys open the AI Assistant, see an empty chat box, and aren’t sure what to type. They close it and go back to doing things the old way.
Team Prompts solve that problem. Rather than leaving every attorney on their own to figure out how to prompt the AI, anyone at your firm can contribute to a shared library of pre-written prompts that show up right inside the AI Assistant for the whole team to use. It’s one of the most practical things a firm can do to drive consistent adoption and results.
Here’s what Team Prompts are, how to set them up, and how to write ones that actually deliver value.
What Are Team Prompts?
Team Prompts are shared prompts that any user at your firm can create and publish to the entire organization. They appear inside the AI Assistant’s Prompts panel, which has three tabs: All, Your Prompts, and Team Prompts.
- All shows everything — both your personal prompts and any team prompts you’ve saved.
- Your Prompts shows only the prompts you’ve saved for yourself.
- Team Prompts shows all prompts shared across the firm.
Think of Team Prompts as your firm’s curated starter kit. Instead of each attorney reinventing the wheel every time they need to summarize a deposition or analyze a contract, they can click a pre-built prompt that someone at the firm has already written and tested. The AI does the rest.
| Team Prompts appear alongside personal prompts in the same panel. Attorneys can run them with one click — no prompt engineering required. |
How to Create a Team Prompt
Creating a Team Prompt is straightforward. Open the AI Assistant and click the Prompts panel. From there, click the + Add Prompt button in the top right corner. Write your prompt, then when you’re ready to save, click the Save dropdown arrow — you’ll see two options: Save to your prompts and Save to team prompts.
Choosing Save to team prompts publishes it immediately to the Team Prompts tab for everyone in your organization. Any user with access to the AI Assistant can do this — it’s not restricted to administrators.
This means prompt-building can be a team effort. If a litigation partner writes a deposition summary prompt that works well, they can share it to the firm library in seconds. If a paralegal develops a reliable chronology prompt, it’s immediately available to everyone else.
Why Team Prompts Matter for Adoption
Prompt quality directly impacts output quality. A vague prompt like “summarize this” gives the AI almost nothing to work with. A well-constructed prompt that specifies what to look for, how to format the answer, and what terminology to use gets dramatically better results.
The problem is that most attorneys don’t want to become prompt engineers. They want to do legal work. Team Prompts bridge that gap by putting the work of prompt crafting in the hands of whoever is willing to do it — and then making those results available to everyone else with a single click.
Firms that invest time building a solid set of Team Prompts tend to see meaningfully higher AI Assistant usage across the board. The barrier to entry drops from “figure out how to ask this” to “click here.”
How to Write Team Prompts That Actually Work
A good Team Prompt does four things: it gives the AI a role, tells it what action to take, provides context about the document type, and specifies what the output should look like. This maps to a simple framework called RACE:
- Role — Who is the AI acting as?
- Action — What should it do?
- Context — What kind of document or situation?
- Expectation — What should the output look like?
You don’t need to hit all four elements in every prompt, but the more specific you are, the better the results. Here are five litigation-focused examples ready to use as Team Prompts:
| Deposition Summary
You are an experienced litigation attorney. Summarize this deposition transcript. Identify the witness’s key admissions, any inconsistencies with prior statements, and the three most important takeaways for trial preparation. Format your response with a brief overview paragraph followed by a bullet list for each category. |
| Motion Analysis
You are a litigation associate reviewing a motion. Identify the moving party’s core legal arguments, the standard of review being applied, and any weaknesses in the argument that opposing counsel could exploit. Format as a structured memo with sections for each area. |
| Discovery Request Review
Review this discovery request and identify: (1) any objectionable requests on overbreadth, relevance, or privilege grounds; (2) requests that appear designed to impose undue burden; and (3) requests that may implicate attorney-client privilege or work product protection. Present findings as a numbered list with a brief explanation for each flagged item. |
| Exhibit Chronology
You are a paralegal organizing case materials. Extract all dates, events, and key facts from this document and organize them in chronological order. Include the source document and page number for each entry. Format as a table with columns for Date, Event, and Source. |
| Pleading Issue Spotter
Review this pleading and identify the claims asserted, the elements required for each claim under the applicable jurisdiction, and whether the pleading sufficiently alleges facts supporting each element. Flag any elements that appear inadequately pleaded. |
Tips for Managing Your Team Prompt Library
A few practical notes from working with firms on their AI Assistant rollouts:
- Start small. Five well-written prompts are more useful than twenty mediocre ones. Launch with your highest-frequency use cases and build from there.
- Name prompts clearly. The name is the first thing users see in the panel. “Deposition Summary” is clear. “Summary” is not.
- Test before sharing. Run each prompt on a real document before saving it to the team library. What sounds good in theory sometimes doesn’t hold up in practice.
- Revisit periodically. As your workflows evolve, so should your prompts. Treat the library as a living resource, not a one-time setup.
- Solicit feedback. Ask the attorneys using the prompts which ones are most useful and which feel off. Their input will make the library better over time.
Personal Prompts vs. Team Prompts
Individual users can also save prompts to their own personal library using the Save to your prompts option. Personal prompts work exactly the same way as Team Prompts — one click to run — but they’re only visible to the person who created them.
Personal prompts are great for highly specialized tasks that only apply to one attorney’s workflow. Team Prompts are for tasks that apply broadly across the firm. Both show up in the same Prompts panel, so attorneys have access to everything in one place, regardless of which tab they’re on.
Getting Started
If your firm already has the AI Assistant enabled, setting up Team Prompts is one of the quickest wins. It takes less than an hour to put together a solid initial library, and the payoff in adoption and consistency is immediate.
If you’re not sure where to start, Optiable can help. We work with law firms on AI Assistant configuration, prompt library development, and team training — and we can help you build a prompt library tailored to your practice areas and workflows.
Interested in the AI Assistant? Book a consultation at go.oncehub.com/optconsult.