What's an effective AI prompt for creating a discovery document review checklist

The Prompt

Create a document review checklist for discovery in [case type/matter].

What we're looking for: [key issues, e.g., communications about X, financial records showing Y]
Privilege considerations: [flag attorney-client privilege, work product]
Format as a checklist a reviewer can work through document-by-document, with a column for "relevant / privileged / neither." 

Why This Prompt Works

A structured, issue-tagged checklist keeps document review consistent across multiple reviewers on a large matter, which matters directly for defensibility if review methodology is ever challenged — an unstructured “read everything and use judgment” approach doesn’t produce that consistency.

How to Customize It

List the specific issue tags for your matter (not generic categories) so reviewers are checking against the actual theory of the case, not guessing at relevance — pull these directly from the pleadings or discovery requests rather than writing them from memory, and update the list if the case theory shifts partway through review.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t skip the privilege column — flagging potentially privileged material at first-pass review, rather than catching it later, is what prevents inadvertent disclosure. Also don’t let reviewers apply the checklist inconsistently by leaving key terms undefined; a shared glossary of what counts as a hit on each issue tag keeps multiple reviewers’ output comparable across a large review team.

Bottom Line

A good discovery-checklist prompt produces a consistent, issue-tagged framework reviewers can apply uniformly — privilege flagging built in from the first pass, not added after the fact.