# AI for Legal Professionals Course (Self-Paced)

Canonical URL: <https://www.graduateschool.edu/courses/ai-for-legal-professionals-course-self-paced>

## Overview

This self-paced course helps legal professionals build a practical Claude workflow from first use to full implementation. You’ll learn prompting, Projects, Artifacts, and tool integrations using real-world legal examples and documents. Along the way, you’ll apply Claude to contracts, briefs, memoranda, case summaries, discovery review, compliance documentation, and client communications, while emphasizing professional responsibility and attorney review of all AI-assisted work. By the end, you’ll have a personalized Claude system and a completed capstone matter preparation package aligned to your role and organizational priorities.

## What you'll learn

- Write structured prompts that produce accurate results for writing, analysis, summarization, and research
- Set up and use Projects, Artifacts, Styles, and Memory to build a personalized Claude workflow
- Apply advanced prompting techniques including role-based prompting, chain-of-thought reasoning, and the You Ask Me method
- Connect Claude to workplace tools including Google Drive, Gmail, Excel, and PowerPoint
- Apply Claude to core legal workflows including contract drafting, case law summarization, brief preparation, document review, and compliance documentation
- Build a complete legal Claude system and produce a capstone matter preparation package ready for attorney review

## Curriculum

#### Module 1: Getting Started with Claude AI

- Explain how Claude works in plain language and identify the model tiers, plans, and interface
- Understand the context window, how Claude processes information, and when to start new conversations
- Practice your first Claude conversation using a legal-specific prompt
- Identify what Claude does well, what it doesn’t, and when human judgment is essential

#### Module 2: Prompting Fundamentals

- Apply the five-part prompt framework: context, task, format, constraints, and examples
- Write effective prompts across five use cases: writing, summarization, analysis, research, and creative problem-solving
- Recognize and fix common prompting mistakes that produce vague or unusable output
- Practice prompting with legal scenarios: drafting a contract clause, summarizing a court opinion, and writing a client status update

#### Module 3: Working with Files & Documents

- Upload and analyze images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and documents directly in Claude
- Use Claude to extract, compare, and summarize information from uploaded files
- Work with legal-specific file types: contracts, court opinions, pleadings, discovery documents, and compliance reports
- Complete a hands-on document analysis exercise using provided legal sample files

#### Module 4: Projects & Knowledge Bases

- Explain how Projects use custom instructions and knowledge bases to organize ongoing work
- Write effective Project instructions that encode your role, audience, format preferences, and rules
- Upload reference documents and understand how RAG retrieves relevant content
- Create a legal Project for a transaction or litigation matter using provided sample contracts, case summaries, and templates

#### Module 5: Artifacts, Styles, Memory & Usage Management

- Create reusable deliverables with Artifacts and edit them directly or through conversation
- Build custom Styles that match your professional communication voice
- Configure Memory to retain key context about you and your work across conversations
- Apply usage management techniques to extend your plan value

#### Module 6: Introduction to Claude Cowork

- Explain what Cowork is and how it differs from the claude.ai chat interface
- Read, write, and manage files from your desktop environment
- Configure guardrails, file permissions, and network settings for safe use
- Understand prompt injection risks and how to protect against them

#### Module 7: Advanced Prompting & AI Tool Selection

- Use role-based prompting, chain-of-thought reasoning, and multi-step workflows
- Apply Extended Thinking, web search, and the You Ask Me technique for complex tasks
- Compare Claude with ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini to choose the right tool for each task
- Practice advanced prompting with legal scenarios: identifying risks in a contract, building a legal research memorandum step by step, and preparing deposition questions from witness statements

#### Module 8: Context System, Connectors & Integrations

- Build foundational context files and set Global Instructions that apply to every Cowork session
- Connect Claude to Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, and other workplace tools
- Use Claude natively in Excel and PowerPoint with the Office add-ins
- Configure your context system and connections for legal workflows, including document comparison in Excel and case presentations in PowerPoint

#### Module 9: AI for Legal — Core Workflows

- Use Claude to draft, review, and redline contracts with clause-level analysis and risk identification
- Summarize case law, statutes, and regulatory guidance into structured research memoranda
- Prepare brief outlines, motion drafts, and argument frameworks from case materials
- Extract key terms, dates, obligations, and parties from large document sets for review and analysis
- Complete a hands-on lab producing a multi-document legal work product package

#### Module 10: Capstone — Build Your Legal Claude System

- Audit your legal tasks and identify the highest-value opportunities for Claude assistance
- Configure a personalized legal Claude system: Projects, context files, Styles, and connected tools
- Run a complete end-to-end matter preparation workflow: contract review summary, research memo, client communication, and matter status brief
- Create a Week 1 action plan for applying what you’ve learned to your legal practice

## Instructors

### Steve Pesklo — Instructor

Steve is an energetic trainer who focuses on applying technical concepts to everyday work practices. He is the founder and president of SoftLake Solutions, a company that specializes in providing data and AI applications to identify fraud for Internal Audit, Criminal Investigations, Forensic Accounting, Privacy, and Compliance.

Steve brings a large amount of experience across multiple industries and government agencies. He is an expert in implementing large data analysis projects across the world, including Inland Revenue in the UK and Argentina, New Zealand, Africa and across Europe. Previously, he was the manager of Data Architecture and Data Services for a large mortgage company. He is a frequent speaker on data analytics and project management topics and speaks fluent German. He has been teaching at the Graduate School for over 10 years.

Steve has an M.B.A. from the University of St. Thomas and a B.S. in Computer Science from California Lutheran University and the Universität Salzburg in Austria. He is certified as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Project Management Professional (PMP), and a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).

## Pricing

**Tuition:** $899