Every time you start a new conversation with an AI tool, do you find yourself repeating the same instructions? Keep it concise. Use plain English. Don’t invent facts. Ask questions when the assignment is unclear. Write for a client rather than another lawyer. That repetition is optional. Now you can use AI personalizations in Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude, and establish the ground rules for assisting you.
You Shouldn’t Have to Retype Every Prompt
The leading productivity AI tools now include personalization features that let you provide standing guidance about who you are, how you work and how you want the tool to respond. Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude use somewhat different labels and controls, but the basic idea is the same: Teach the AI the durable context you should not have to retype in every prompt.
Personalization will not make an AI tool infallible, and it does not replace a well-written prompt. It can, however, make everyday results more consistent and reduce the amount of corrective editing you do afterward.
Two Kinds of Personalization
It helps to separate personalization into two buckets:
- Standing instructions. Directions you deliberately provide about tone, format, process and guardrails. Think: “Use headings and bullets when they improve readability” or “If important information is missing, ask before making assumptions.”
- Memory or persistent context. Information the tool can carry from one conversation to another, such as your role, practice area, jurisdiction, recurring audience or long-running projects.
A useful shorthand is: Instructions describe how you want the AI to work; memory describes what you want it to know. The line is not perfectly sharp, and the products implement it differently, but the distinction is practical.
A good starting instruction: “When my request is ambiguous or important facts are missing, ask focused follow-up questions before drafting. Do not fill gaps with invented facts.”
Microsoft Copilot: Custom Instructions and Memory
Microsoft Copilot’s personalization controls include Custom instructions and Saved memories. Custom instructions can shape how Copilot responds, while saved memories provide ongoing context about you and your work. Microsoft says these controls may be managed by the organization, and its current documentation labels personalization and memory as preview features, so availability and interface details may change.
Useful Copilot instructions for legal work
- Keep your tone warm and professional. Prefer plain English and define legal or technical terms that a client may not know.
- Prioritize accuracy over agreement. If my premise is weak or incomplete, say so directly and explain why.
- When summarizing meetings, separate decisions, open questions and action items. Include an owner or deadline only when the source states one.
- When drafting an email, give me a concise subject line and a short message suitable for a busy legal professional.
- Do not use “users” when referring to people. Prefer “team members,” “staff,” “clients” or a more specific term.
Useful Copilot memories
- I am a commercial litigator practicing primarily in Washington state.
- Most of my external writing is for business clients who are intelligent but are not lawyers.
- I frequently work on employment matters for employers with 50 to 500 employees.
- I prefer practical recommendations, risk flags and next steps rather than long background explanations.
Do not store confidential client facts merely because memory is convenient. Use only an approved account and follow your organization’s AI and information-governance policies.
ChatGPT: Custom Instructions and Memory
ChatGPT also offers Custom Instructions and Memory. OpenAI describes custom instructions as the place for stable preferences such as your role, desired tone, output formats and guardrails. Memory can retain recurring context you ask it to remember, and you can review or remove saved information in Personalization settings.
Useful ChatGPT instructions for legal work
- For short writing requests, provide two alternatives: one direct and one more diplomatic. Keep each under 150 words unless I ask for more.
- When reviewing an argument, identify the strongest counterargument and any assumption that requires verification.
- Never fabricate a case, citation, quotation, date or numerical claim. If you cannot verify something, label it clearly for human research.
- Use Bluebook-style citation structure only when I ask for legal citations, and flag any element you cannot confirm from the source I provide.
- End substantive answers with a short “What to verify” section when the result could affect a client, filing or legal conclusion.
Useful ChatGPT memories
- I write a monthly technology column for legal professionals.
- My default audience prefers concise, practical advice and realistic examples.
- I use Microsoft 365 and generally want recommendations that fit Outlook, Word, Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint.
- I prefer contractions and conversational business writing, but not jokes or exaggerated marketing language.
A quality control instruction: “Treat every factual assertion, quotation, legal authority and product capability as something that may require verification. Distinguish verified information from drafting suggestions.”
Claude: Instructions, Memory and Project Context
Claude provides persistent memory and can search or reference prior chats when those features are available and enabled. Anthropic also emphasizes project-scoped memory, which helps keep the context for one project separate from another. That separation can be valuable when a lawyer is working on unrelated clients or matters, although it is not a substitute for appropriate security, access controls or professional judgment.
Useful Claude instructions for legal work
- Write in a clear, restrained style. Avoid throat-clearing introductions, inflated claims and repetitive conclusions.
- When revising my draft, preserve my substantive position and voice. Make the smallest changes needed for clarity, organization and tone.
- When analyzing several documents, distinguish what each document states from your synthesis or recommendation.
- When a request involves a process, first outline the proposed steps and identify any missing inputs or approvals.
- For long documents, use informative headings and short paragraphs. Put the recommendation first, followed by supporting analysis.
Useful Claude memories or project context
- This project concerns a client-facing employment handbook update; the audience is HR leadership, not employment counsel.
- Our approved terminology uses “team member” rather than “employee” in general communications.
- The governing documents for this project are the uploaded policy manual, approved template and current issue list.
- When sources conflict, show the conflict rather than silently choosing one.
What Belongs in Personalization, and What Does Not?
| GOOD CANDIDATES | KEEP IN CURRENT PROMPT OR MATTER WORKSPACE |
| Stable tone and formatting preferences | Confidential client names, facts and strategy |
| Your role, practice area and typical audience | One-time deadlines or short-lived assignments |
| A recurring review or drafting process | Document-specific facts that may change |
| Rules for handling uncertainty and missing information | Passwords, access keys or authentication information |
| Preferred terminology and level of detail | Anything prohibited by firm policy or client terms |
Build Your AI Personalizations by Interviewing Yourself
If you are not sure what instructions to put in personalization, let the AI help you create it. Start a normal chat and use a prompt like this:
“Interview me to create a concise set of personalization instructions for my work. Ask one question at a time about my role, typical assignments, audience, tone, preferred formats, recurring workflow, risk tolerance, how you should handle uncertainty and what I dislike in AI responses. After the interview, draft instructions I can review and paste into my personalization settings. Do not include confidential client information.”
Review the result carefully. Remove anything temporary, vague or sensitive. Then test the instructions on a few ordinary tasks and revise them when the AI consistently overdoes or ignores something.
Personalization is a starting point, not a delegation of judgment
The most important limitation is easy to miss: personalization makes an AI more consistent, not more authoritative. A tool that reliably writes in your preferred style can still be wrong. A tool that remembers your practice area can still misunderstand the assignment. A tool that produces a polished analysis can still omit a key fact or invent a source.
For legal professionals, the durable instruction should therefore be bigger than “sound like me.”
It should reinforce the working habits you want from a careful assistant: identify missing information, distinguish sources from conclusions, surface uncertainty, protect confidential information and leave final judgment to the lawyer.
A few minutes spent on personalization will not eliminate prompting. It should eliminate some of the repetition, reduce avoidable cleanup and help your AI tools begin each conversation with a better understanding of how you work.
Sources and Additional Resources on AI Personalizations
- Microsoft Learn: Manage Copilot Personalization and Memory
- OpenAI Academy: Personalizing ChatGPT
- OpenAI: Personalize ChatGPT with Custom Instructions
- Claude Help Center: Import and Export Memory
- Anthropic: Bringing Memory to Teams
- Claude Help Center: Chat Search and Memory
About Affinity Consulting Group
Affinity Consulting Group inspires, enables and empowers legal teams of all sizes to work smarter, from anywhere. The company’s holistic approach incorporates people, process and technology. Affinity’s passionate, well-connected industry experts work hand in hand with you to help you better understand and optimize your business — from software to growth strategy, and everything in between.
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- 6 Ways Microsoft Word Speech-to-Text AI Can Help You Write Faster and Better
- Three Quick Excel Tips for Legal Professionals
- Create Interactive Dashboards With Microsoft Copilot
- Organizing Legal Work with Copilot Notebooks
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