Creating a First Draft of a Reply to a Long Email: Steps for Saving Time with Generative AI

Hello, I'm Noriaki Asato, Representative Attorney at LegalAgent.

Some of the emails that reach a legal department call for several decisions at once. For example, a business partner may send a revised draft of a service agreement and present several requests at the same time, such as "We cannot accept the cap on damages," "We would like subcontracting to be conditional on prior consent," and "Please move the delivery date forward by two weeks." Writing a reply that conveys the requirements clearly without causing friction, while deciding issue by issue whether to accept, take back for internal review, or agree subject to conditions, is work that takes time and nerves.

A reply email is a document that goes directly outside the company. The choice of a single expression can greatly change how the other party takes it. A careless "Understood" may, depending on the context, be misread as agreement even to conditions that should have been taken back for internal review. Even if this is not immediately regarded as the legal formation of a contract, it can weaken your negotiating position or invite unnecessary disputes.

If you give ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or similar tools your response policy, they can produce a draft reply. However, AI output may contain errors, and clever instructions alone cannot guarantee complete accuracy. It helps to make drafting more efficient while people remain responsible for the decisions.

Dividing Work Between the First Draft and Human Judgment

When writing an email, starting from a draft in hand and revising it can sometimes be faster than starting from a blank page. If you give the AI the key points you want to convey and your company's position, have it produce a draft, and then have a person refine and finalize the text, it becomes easier to balance speed of drafting with accuracy of expression.

What matters in this approach is that the decision on whether to accept a condition is not left to the AI, but is made by people in accordance with the company's approval authority. People decide the policy, such as whether to reject the damages cap or to permit subcontracting subject to written consent, and the AI's role is limited to polishing courteous wording in line with that policy. If you leave the judgment to the AI as well, the reply may not match your company's negotiating policy.

With a draft, you can reduce the time spent structuring the text. In exchange, you gain time to think about how accepting a condition would affect the business.

Specifying the Tone According to the Relationship with the Other Party

The appropriate expression in a reply to a business partner differs depending on your past relationship and the temperature of the negotiations. Whether the partner is one with whom you have an ongoing relationship of trust, whether this is a new contract negotiation, or whether there is a conflict of opinions changes the language you should use.

When giving instructions, specifying the tone in advance, such as "maintain courtesy while avoiding verbosity" or "keep the expression soft while conveying the policy clearly," makes it easier to obtain text that fits the purpose. In legal communications in particular, it is important to instruct the AI to clearly distinguish expressions conveying a settled policy from expressions reserving a matter as under review. Conditions already approved internally can be stated clearly as "We accept," while matters that need to be checked with relevant departments should be kept to a reserved expression such as "We will confirm internally and get back to you." If you give this distinction as an instruction in advance, it becomes easier to prevent unsettled conditions from being mistakenly written as if they were settled.

Example Reply Prompts for Different Situations

First, the basic format, which specifies your position, the key points to convey, the tone, and the length. By swapping out the key points, you can use it for drafts of everyday communications.

Please create a first draft of a reply to the following incoming email. Do not state anything that has not been decided as settled; instead, use an expression such as "We will confirm internally and get back to you."

- My position: legal staff on the service provider side
- Key points to convey: (1) We will consider the proposal positively (2) Some conditions need to be taken back for internal review
- Tone: Courteous, but not roundabout; make the requirements clear
- Length: about 200 characters for the body (paste the key points of the incoming email below) [Paste the key points of the incoming email here (with company and personal names masked)]

When multiple revision requests arrive at once, organizing your company's response policy for each issue in bullet points and giving that as the instruction produces a draft reply that is also easy for the other party to read.

The following incoming email contains multiple requests to revise the contract terms. Please create a first draft of a reply that organizes our company's response for each issue. My position is legal staff on the client side.

For each issue, our response policy is as follows. (Damages cap: we cannot accept it and would like to decline politely / Subcontracting: permit it on the condition of prior written consent / Moving the delivery date forward: needs internal confirmation, so we would like to take it back for review) Even for points we do not accept, please use soft phrasing that does not harm the relationship. Briefly add reasons for declining, within a range that is reasonable for our company. The body should be about 400 characters. At the end, add one sentence on the next action (what we will send back and by when). Paste the key points of the incoming email below. [Paste the key points of the incoming email here (with company and personal names masked)]

When using this advanced prompt, do not let the AI invent fictitious explanations or promises not based on fact regarding the reasons for declining or the date of the next communication. Do not include reasons that have not been confirmed internally, and if the date is undecided, mark it clearly as "to be confirmed" or leave it blank, so that a person later fills in only confirmed facts. Even if the text is fluent, adding unfounded explanations can damage the relationship of trust.

For contract revisions and condition adjustments that recur within the company, sharing the skeleton of such instructions allows the response policy and guidelines for expression to be passed on even when the person in charge changes. When keeping confirmed sample texts, also note in which situations they can be used.

Typical Errors to Prevent Before Sending

Because AI-generated text looks polished at first glance, the error of skipping the check and sending it as is tends to occur. Matters that were supposed to be held for internal review may have become wording of acceptance, or a history different from the facts may have been added. Also, the intention to decline may be weakened into a vague "We will consider this positively," or conversely the tone may become excessively strong and damage the relationship. It is essential to strike a balance that clearly conveys the intention to decline while keeping a calm and courteous tone.

Furthermore, pasting an incoming email as is into the input field raises information management concerns. The body of an email may contain the business partner's company name, the names of the persons in charge, transaction terms, unpublished development plans, and so on. Confirm that the environment or service is one approved for use within the company, and select the information to input in light of the company's data management policy. Masking company names and amounts or turning on settings that prevent training does not by itself mean that unlimited input is permitted. Before sending, check the following:

• Whether dates, amounts, and the agreed content match the incoming email and the confirmed internal policy
• Whether the reader can also distinguish settled matters from matters still being confirmed internally
• Whether the intention to decline comes across without unnecessarily strong wording
• Whether only information that may go outside the company is included, and whether the recipients and attachments are correct