AI for the Defense: Ethical Use, Accuracy, and Attorney Responsibility. TCDLA session resources.
If you keep three things
- 1The duties have not changed. Competence, confidentiality, supervision, and candor already govern every AI-assisted filing. Responsibility cannot be delegated to software.
- 2Ground it. Do not trust its memory. Hand the model the statute, the record, and your own materials, and make it answer from what you provided.
- 3Open the source yourself. Verify every citation before you rely on it. A confident answer is not a verified one.
Do the activities
AI Fluency Self-Assessment
A five-question self-check that places your practice on a four-level ladder.
AI in the Courts
Real sanctions, privilege rulings, and coverage behind the ethics we cover, plus a Stay up to date link.
Legal Ethics Scenario Randomizer
Draw a fictional AI-ethics dilemma tied to a Texas Disciplinary Rule, talk it through at your table, and share out.
PBL Scenario Lab
Three fictional fact patterns, worked through TCDLAi from the good prompt to the best.
Scenario Bank
Fifty more Texas fact patterns, each with a ready-to-run prompt and statute links. Practice after the session.
Take it with you
TCDLAi Prompt Design Guide
The six-move framework with example defense prompts for each letter. Printable.
Ethical Guardrail Checklist
The eight-point, one-page check you run before relying on any output. Printable.
Legal Prompt Library
Defense prompts sorted by type and task, each written to push toward verification.
Legal GenAI Market Atlas
An evidence-weighted directory of legal AI tools you can search and filter by phase, buyer, and price. Verified July 2026.
Storytelling for the Defense
One fictional story about AI in a defense practice, told five ways, with a rubric for testing it, focus-group methods, and a way to cast your witnesses.
Legal AI Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the AI terms that actually matter in a defense practice, from hallucination and RAG to retention and de-identification.
Tools and assistants
Pick one free AI chatbot
Claude, ChatGPT, Z.ai, or Mistral all have free tiers that work for every activity today. If you have none set up, use the BoodleBox code from the session. We also look at Claude for Legal as an example of purpose-built, review-gated legal AI.
The one rule before you type: never put confidential, privileged, or client-identifying facts into a consumer chatbot. Every scenario here is fictional for that reason.
TCDLALegalAI Bot
A ready-made, defense-focused assistant with the TCDLAi framework and the guardrails built in. Open it in BoodleBox and start working.
LegalAI Custom GPT
The same defense-focused assistant as a ChatGPT Custom GPT. Open it and start working.
Want to build your own copy? Download the bot files as a zip (markdown with a .txt extension so they upload cleanly), or browse them on GitHub.