Posted by [By Kyana Givens, FDP Special Counsel for Strategic Litigation & Automation]
Raise your hand if you have ever learned about an Eleventh Circuit opinion from a text or email sent by a colleague who is somehow always ahead of you. Good news: you can be that colleague, and you can do it while your coffee is still hot.
Or maybe you are at a CLE (like St. Crispin Day) and you hear so many topics you want to follow-up on later. Schedule an AI assistant to help you track those topics going forward.
Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can all run a prompt on a schedule and have a briefing waiting each morning, covering only the topics you choose. You do not need to be a technologist. You need one good prompt and one sentence telling the tool when to run it.
How to set it up
- Claude: Write your prompt, then say: “Turn this into a scheduled task that runs every weekday at 6:30 a.m. Eastern.” Manage tasks from the “Scheduled” section of the sidebar. Anthropic’s short tutorial, Delegating and scheduling tasks in Claude, walks through it (the title uses the older name, Cowork).
- ChatGPT: Paid plans only. Tell ChatGPT what you want and when, and it creates a “Task,” managed from the Tasks section of your profile menu. Ten active tasks maximum.
- Gemini: Paid subscription only. Ask Gemini for something recurring, and it appears under Scheduled Actions in Settings and Help. Also capped at ten.
A note for CJA panel attorneys
Availability varies by plan and by how an organization’s administrator configures the tool, so test with one simple scheduled prompt first. Also check whether your tool runs in the cloud or only while your computer is awake and the app is open. That decides whether the 6:30 a.m. brief actually arrives.
Write prompts that stand alone
Each scheduled run starts fresh, so name the court, topics, format, and length every time. Here is a starter for lawyers:
Every weekday, search the web for new Eleventh Circuit opinions in criminal cases from the last 24 hours (72 on Mondays). For each, give the case name, date, issue and holding in one sentence each, and why a defense lawyer might care. Group by topic, link every opinion, and keep it under 400 words. If nothing issued, say so.
Swap in other topics: Sentencing Commission amendments and the November 1 cycle, the Supreme Court criminal docket, Fourth Amendment surveillance litigation after Chatrie, CJA panel and voucher news, or Daubert rulings on forensic and algorithmic evidence.
Everyone gets a briefing
Defense is a team sport, so every role can have its own briefing:
- Investigators: “Every Friday, summarize new reporting and decisions on law enforcement surveillance technology (license plate readers, facial recognition, geofence warrants, phone extraction) in two sentences each, and tell me what to request in discovery. Link sources.”
- Paralegals: “Every Monday, list new or amended rules, standing orders, and filing notices for federal criminal practice in the Northern District of Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit, with effective dates and official links.”
- Social workers and mitigation specialists: “Every other Monday, give five plain-language items on new research about trauma, adolescent development, treatment, and reentry, plus First Step Act or Bureau of Prisons program changes, with links.”
- Legal assistants: “Every Monday, give one practical tip on legal citation format or plain-language legal writing, with a before-and-after example using made-up facts, under 150 words.”
A few no-schedule hacks for any chat
Paste your own paragraph and ask for “20 percent tighter and show me what you cut.” Ask for a dense passage in plain language a client could read. Or ask for formatting inconsistencies in a table of authorities.
Two ground rules
- Topics, not (!) clients. Prompts need courts and subjects, never names, case numbers, or discovery details. Check your state bar’s and your office’s AI guidance.
- Verify before you cite. A briefing is a fast, organized tip line. AI can misstate holdings or invent cases, so pull and read every authority yourself.
The encouraging part
For years, staying current meant giving up evenings or hoping someone forwarded the right email. Now a five-minute morning read gives a solo panel lawyer much of what a big research team provides, and gives every role in the office a sharper edge. The investigator spots the new tool, the paralegal catches the rule change, the mitigation specialist finds the study, and the lawyer walks into court ready.
Start with one personal briefing. Tune it for two weeks. By Thanksgiving, you will be the colleague who texts or emails first . . . but please warn against “reply all” 😊.
As always, reach out to me or anyone else at the Federal Defender Program to talk through your own setup.
