Separate your AI roles — Self Rep Ready
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One job per session Australia 6 min read

Separate your AI roles

A single long chat that gathers facts, drafts the letter and then reviews it will review it kindly, because it wrote it. Give each job its own session, the same standing brief, and a clean handover between them.

Use this when

You are using an AI tool for more than a one-off question, across days or weeks, on the same matter.

Leave with

Four named sessions, a short brief you paste into every one of them, and a habit of ending each session with a note the next one can start from.

Verify with

A professional conduct solicitor specialising in litigation technology.

The central rule

The session that drafts is never the session that reviews

An AI tool asked to check its own draft in the same conversation has every reason to find it good. It wrote it from the same assumptions, with the same gaps, in the same voice. A fresh session with only the draft and the facts in front of it is more likely to read it cold. That is the whole method.

The same applies in the other direction. A session that has spent an hour arguing the other side's case will drift into that framing when you ask it to write yours. Contamination is not a malfunction. It is what a long shared context does.

The four roles

One session each, named so you can find them again
RoleWhat it doesWhat it never does
Fact roomReceives documents quietly, builds the factual spine and the chronology, answers "what does the record show about X" with a source.Draft, argue, or characterise anything as a breach or a right.
DrafterWrites the letter, submission or summary from the confirmed spine, citing spine line numbers, in the voice set by the brief.Add a fact that is not in the spine. Review its own work.
Red teamReads a finished draft as the other side's solicitor, then as a busy registrar. Lists the strongest fair objections, the unsupported sentences, the places tone slips.Rewrite the draft. See the drafter's reasoning. Be told the draft is "nearly done".
Plain-English explainerExplains an unfamiliar document, rule or letter in plain words, with every legal classification marked UNVERIFIED.Advise. Predict. Draft.

The prompt library has a defined job description for each of these and several more. The point of this page is not the prompts. It is that they live in different windows.

The standing brief

Every session starts by pasting the same short brief. Without it, four sessions become four different understandings of the matter. Keep it in a file and update it when the facts change; never edit it inside a chat.

What the brief contains, in about a page:

  • The matter in five lines. Court, parties, what it is about, what stage it is at, the next date.
  • The confirmed spine, or a link to it if the tool can read files. This is the only source of facts.
  • The rules. Not a lawyer; no advice; separate fact from allegation from inference; mark every legal classification UNVERIFIED; never draft, alter or rephrase sworn or witness evidence; cite spine line numbers; nothing compelled, privileged, confidential, suppressed, or containing other people's personal information is in this session and none must be requested; comply with the court's practice note on AI use.
  • The voice. Three or four lines on how you write: plain, factual, no adjectives, short sentences, no threats, as if a judge will read it. The clear legal letter guide has a fuller version.
  • What this session is for, in one line, so the brief and the role agree.
The brief is not a place for strategy

What you hope to achieve, what you would settle for, what you think the other side fears: none of that belongs in a document you paste into a third-party tool. Keep the brief to facts, rules and voice. Your position lives in a private, secure note of your own and, if you have one, with your lawyer.

The handover note

Long sessions drift. The tool forgets early instructions, you forget what was decided, and a session that resumes three days later is not the session you left. End every substantial session by asking for a handover note, and save it to the matter folder with a date.

Ask for this before you close a session
Write a handover note for the next session. Include only: (1) what this session was for; (2) what was produced, with filenames; (3) decisions I made during the session, in my words; (4) anything left unfinished; (5) any fact that changed and needs updating in the spine or the brief. Do not include your reasoning, any strategy, or anything not stated in this session. Keep it under 300 words.

The next session starts with the brief, then the handover note, then the job. A new session picking up from a good handover is more reliable than an old session that has forgotten half of what it was told.

Working order

  1. Fact room first. Build and confirm the spine. Nothing else starts until this is done.
  2. Drafter. Brief, spine, job. Get a draft with spine citations. Do not ask it whether the draft is good.
  3. Red team, fresh window. Brief, the draft, the spine. Ask for objections only. Take the list back to the drafter, or fix it yourself.
  4. Repeat two and three until the red team's list is short and you agree with what is left on it.
  5. You read it. Out loud if it is going anywhere that matters. The tools have done their jobs; the judgment is yours.
  6. Handover notes from each session, filed.

Two sessions can still share a blind spot, because they share a model and a brief. Cross-review reduces the chance of missing something. It does not create two independent lawyers, and it does not replace one.

From Jordan's case file

Fictional example: The sentence that had become furniture
Jordan had been working in one long chat for two weeks. It held his documents, his chronology, three drafts of a letter to Meridian's solicitors, and a great deal of his thinking out loud. When he asked it to review the final draft, it suggested two commas. He opened a new window, pasted the brief and the spine, and gave it only the draft with the instruction: "You act for Meridian. List the five points you would make in reply, strongest first." The first point was that paragraph 6 asserted a meeting had taken place on 14 May "as Meridian is aware", and nothing in the spine supported the date. Jordan had written that sentence in the first draft two weeks earlier, from memory, and it had been carried forward through every version since. The long session had read it so many times it no longer saw it. The new session had never seen it before. He found the calendar entry. The meeting was on 12 May. The sentence was fixed, and the phrase "as Meridian is aware" came out with it, because he could not show what Meridian was aware of. He now keeps the drafter and the red team in different windows and does not tell the red team how long the draft took.

Common mistakes

  • One chat for everything. Convenient for a day, unreliable by the second week.
  • Asking the drafter to review. It tends to find commas.
  • Telling the red team what you hope it will say. "This is nearly ready, just check it" produces a check that agrees.
  • Editing the brief inside a chat. The file is the brief; the chat copy is a paste of it.
  • Putting strategy in the brief. Facts, rules and voice only.
  • Resuming a stale session instead of starting fresh from the handover note.
  • Treating two sessions agreeing as verification. They share a model. Verification is you opening the source.

Checklist

  • Four sessions, named by role, each opened with the same standing brief
  • Brief kept as a file: matter in five lines, confirmed spine, rules, voice, session purpose; no strategy
  • Spine confirmed in the fact room before any drafting
  • Drafts cite spine line numbers; unsupported sentences removed
  • Review done in a fresh window that has not seen the drafting
  • Handover note requested and filed at the end of every substantial session
  • Final read done by you, against the sources, before anything is sent or filed
General information only, not legal advice. AI tools can omit, misread or invent facts, dates, rules and cases, and two sessions can share the same error. Check anything you send, file or swear against the original documents and, where it matters, with a qualified person. Never draft sworn evidence with an AI tool. All names, documents, dates and events in the examples are fictional. Last reviewed: September 2026.