The Generative AI newsletter for legal pros everywhere.

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This is day 20 of 100 (our goal - 100 consecutive days!) and today we will:

1. review what a 10-k is

2. choose a potential client to have ChatGPT explain their business model to you

3. take on a certain practice area persona to sift through the 10-k for areas related to our expertise

4. try to find regulations, policies, and other legal elements they face

5. BONUS: create a thought leadership plan relevant to trying to attract this company as a potential client

This Brainyacts edition will be truly helpful to:

• 1st-year associates who want to learn about the client they are doing work on

• Sr. Associates or Jr. Partners who need to begin mapping out a client development plan

• In-house teams who need a global view of the business

• Marketing & Business Development Teams

• Client Value Teams

• Practice Management Teams

1988. Math teachers want to ban calculators in grade school.

Will we see the Generative AI (GAI) edition coming to schools everywhere?

I do wonder what skills or abilities we will lose by overlying on GAI. I think we all could agree that we have lost basic math skills and have to use a calculator for easy math challenges. Quick - What’s 14 multiplied by 3?

But we have also gained so much from the calculator. Its underlying tech is now ubiquitous, as calculations are easily handled by all software products. We don’t even think about it. Unless we are trying to come up with an Excel formula!! BTW ChatGPT can do that for you too.

So does it matter that you still can’t answer the math question above? Likely not.

Not having to do math in our heads or by hand frees up our cognitive energy to tackle other tasks and thinking. GAI is doing the same.

Today’s newsletter will be particularly useful for those that need to sell legal services and those that help develop clients.

Knowing how to break down a client’s business model is a secret weapon that most in legal are unaware of or unsure how to do.

For our in-house readers, this applies to you too. While you may specialize in one area of the business, understanding the complete business model (or being able to communicate it easily to others) is a key skill.

I teach lawyers and law students how to do this at an expert level but there is an entry-level tactic that gets you started quickly. You can then drill down into areas of particular interest.

But first, what is a 10-k?

It is a comprehensive annual report filed by publicly traded companies with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It provides a detailed overview of a company's financial performance, operations, risks, and management.

🔦 Does ChatGPT have access to 10-ks? 

Per ChatPGT: As an AI language model, I do not have direct access to the official 10-K filings or any other financial documents. However, I rely on publicly available information to provide responses, including regulatory filings that are available on the SEC's website or other sources that have published the filings.

Ok, let's kick this off, shall we?

USE CASE

How to use the 10-k to unpack the business model of a company to learn and develop insight to sell into it and even uncover potential and specific opportunities for legal service needs.

The Prompts

Step 1:

▶︎▶︎PROMPT:

TASK: Using the 10-k and other public information please detail the business model for the company

COMPANY: Airbnb

BUSINESS MODEL: key value proposition, main customer segments, main channels, key resources, key activities, key partners, employee experience, operations model, and revenue model

ChatGPT will break out the entire business model for you. Review it. And don’t forget the Power Prompt of “elaborate on” if you want to drill down further. Such as . . . 👇

Step 2:

▶︎▶︎PROMPT:

Elaborate on the employee experience. What is unique, unconventional, or different about how this company thinks and addresses that?

Now you have an intensive look at this element of their business model.

How should you use it? We are coming to that.

Step 3:

Next, let’s get a recent look into what the company is up to and facing.

This is where we want to begin focusing on a specific area or practice of law. Swap in yours. I will use employment law.

We are going to “train” ChatGPT first - just to tighten up its future responses. I want it to look at a 10-k and break it down from the perspective of a certain type of lawyer. This way, going forward, it knows who I am and what is important to me.

▶︎▶︎PROMPT:

As an [employment lawyer] trying to sell legal services to a company, what are some keywords and phrases to look for while reviewing their 10-K filing?

[ ] = your type of law

While this reply is decent, telling me how to develop a budget is fine but it sort of glossed over the “estimating your costs” part of it. I need to dig in further.

Step 4:

Now we are going to ask ChatGPT to look for those helpful keywords and phrases in Airbnb’s most recent 10-k. This should help us detect areas where an employment lawyer might want to know more or dig deeper.

Regardless, it will highlight areas you should just be aware of and help you learn about the company.

▶︎▶︎PROMPT

Please review the most recent 10-k of Airbnb along with your responses above and highlight every element that relates to the keywords or phrases you provided above.

This will likely provide you with specific quotes or sections that might be of high interest to you.

As always, don’t forget the Power Prompt of “elaborate on” - sick of me reminding you of this yet?

Sorry, it’s just too helpful. I want it to become a habit for you.

Step 5: 

Let’s dig a bit deeper and take another swipe at finding pertinent or interesting information that might help me engage or help the company in some way.

▶︎▶︎PROMPT

What policies, regulations, or laws are of greatest concern for a company like OpenAI?

Now you have some fairly specific info. Would the relationship partner and others who have done work for this client know all of this - perhaps? But they likely don’t have the time to share with you nor are you likely to ask them to.

Bonus Prompts : Rapid Thought Leadership

If you want to start generating ideas on what type of content to create based on your target company and the insight you just gained, do this . . . .

▶︎▶︎PROMPT

Ok, time to role-play.

You are an [employment law lawyer] within a multidisciplinary law firm. We are trying to attract OpenAi and similar companies so that they become aware of our services and consider hiring us in the future.

What would an effective thought leadership strategy consist of that has a high likelihood of success in attracting them as a client?

Use the 'Growth Team Framework' to build a cross-functional team with the skills and expertise needed to drive growth for our legal services and describe how you would establish clear roles, responsibilities, and processes to support it. Include specific tactics and metrics you would use to measure the effectiveness of this approach.

Review the response for ideas, then:

▶︎▶︎PROMPT

Elaborate on [Develop thought leadership content]. Provide some examples of content that would be of high interest and could be appropriately written by lawyers.

[ ] = choose a topic/category/idea from previous prompt

💣🧨BOOM!

👉 Now you have:

1. full break out of the business model

2. key insights based on your areas of practice

3. and a thought leadership plan with ideas

News you can use : Being polite to ChatGPT. I kinda feel this. What do we have to lose by not being polite?

Legal AI Couse?

I am keeping this here for now as I have heard from some folks and love the ideas and reactions.

This is from my DMs on Twitter. It has me thinking.

Any thoughts from you on this?

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is legal advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any legal decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.