How to Use ChatGPT to Write a Legal Letter (and Make It Look Like You Paid $500 for It)

If you’ve ever spent $400 on a “short” lawyer letter, (and been underwhelmed with the result or timeframe) this one’s for you.

You can now draft clean, professional, and well-structured legal correspondence using ChatGPT — and it’s easier than you think.

When the relationship falls apart, and we start exchanging legal correspondence, most of us are caught by suprise. To use a volleyball metaphor, we are standing at the baseline flat-footed and waiting for the next ball (letter) to arrive.

With the help of AI, whether you are using a lawyer or self-represented, you can move up to the net, so to speak, and have a reply back across the net within an hour, and put the ball back in their court. Here's how.

Step 1: Gather Your Inputs

ChatGPT works best when you feed it the right ingredients.

Before you start, have ready:

• 🧾 A previous letter or template (MS Word is perfect) — this gives ChatGPT the right formatting, names, and addresses.

• ✉️ The letter you’re replying to — attach or paste the text.

• 📋 A short note from you, in bullet points, covering:

  
  

  • “My position is…” (What you’re asserting or responding to)

  • “What I want to achieve is…” (The desired outcome or next step)

  • “Please note…” (Any background or facts that must be clear)

  
  

Then simply type:

“Please reply to the attached letter. My position is …, what I want to achieve is …, and please note ….”

That’s it. ChatGPT will draft a full, formatted response for you.

Step 2: Coach It Like a Teenager with Homework

Think of ChatGPT as a bright 16-year-old — enthusiastic, fast, and capable, but it still needs direction.

When you read the draft, talk to it the same way you’d coach a teenager on an essay:

“That’s great, but don’t forget that on  this happened.”

“Please add that the result I want is …”

“Can you make this paragraph sound firmer but still polite?”

Every time you give feedback, it learns and sharpens its tone. Within two or three iterations, you’ll have a letter that looks like it came out of a senior partner’s office.

Step 3: Polish It in Word

Once you’re happy with the draft:

1. Copy and paste it into Microsoft Word.

2. Adjust any formatting or letterhead details.

3. Read it aloud once — if you stumble, rephrase that line.

4. Save your clean version.

You now have a polished, professional letter that’s legally literate and personally authentic.

Step 4: Ask ChatGPT to Quality-Check It

You can run two quick quality passes using new chat windows:

1. SWOT analysis:

   Copy-paste your letter and simply say:

   “SWOT analysis please.”ChatGPT will list strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

2. Best and worst five things:

   Open a fresh chat, paste the same letter, and say:

   “Best five things and worst five things please?”This helps you see where the letter is strong and where it could be clearer or more persuasive.

Then follow up with:

“Please draft suggested improvements to three paragraphs.”

Copy those refinements back into your Word file — done.

Why This Works

• It’s fast. What used to take a day can now take 20 minutes.

• It’s cheap. The ChatGPT Plus plan ($20 USD/month) costs less than five minutes of a lawyer’s time.

• It’s controlled. You stay across every word and tone.

• It’s iterative. Each round improves the clarity and strength of your case.

Even if you still use lawyers occasionally for formal filings, this process makes you an informed client and a tougher opponent. It puts the ball back in their court fast and gets inside the other side's OODA loop.

Tips

1. Copy & Paste your letter as text into Grok (www.grok.com) and ask it to "Please check the citations, cases, and legislation cited in this letter.

2. Save your final versions in a folder called /Legal Letters – Final/ and upload them into your own Custom GPT (see last week’s post on setting that up). That way, your AI already knows your style, tone, and case history before you even start the next draft.

3. Save the letters that you actually send separate from the drafts. File them as PDFs with filename first like YYYYMMDD to make them easy to sort and keep track of. For example:

4. "20251025 Ltr <Your Initials> to <Initials of the lawfirm> - <Topic of letter>

5. Only every send PDF letters - MS Word has meta data and retains information about revisions. PDFs also retain the integrity of the correspondence in terms of content and presentation.

6. Last but not least, NEVER trust the case names, citations, or sections of the Act that AI generates. Always check before sending.

Pro Tip:

• Copy and past the contents of the letter into www.grok.com and say "Please check to ensure that the citations are accurate." That will give you a final (invaluable) confidence check.

In Short

1. Gather your materials.

2. Tell ChatGPT your position, goal, and context.

3. Coach it like a teenager.

4. Polish in Word.

5. Run SWOT → “Best/Worst 5” → Refine.

And that’s how you produce a professional, court-ready legal letter for USD$20 a month — and maybe a little satisfaction that you just out-lawyered the lawyers.