Package 2 · Start Here
What This Training Is and How to Use It
GuideHerd Academy
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GuideHerd Academy gives your whole firm access to AI workflow training, prompt libraries, and workflow kits — updated as the tools evolve.
What GuideHerd Academy is
GuideHerd Academy is a practical training resource for professional firms — law firms, consultancies, agencies, and similar practices — that want to use AI tools safely and effectively in their daily work.
This is not theory. Every lesson is built around real workflows: how to run an AI-assisted intake, how to write a prompt that produces reviewable output, how to catch what the AI gets wrong before it causes a problem. You will leave each lesson with something you can apply this week.
Who this is for: Firm staff who handle client intake, workflow coordination, or communication drafting. No technical background required. If you can write an email, you can use these tools.
How to use this training package
This package — AI-Assisted Intake Workflow — has five sections. Read them in order the first time through. After that, use the prompt templates and workflow builder as reference material you return to when you need them.
- Start Here (this page). Orientation, principles, and the rules that apply to everything else.
- Intake Workflow Basics. What AI can safely help with during intake, and how each step works.
- Prompt Templates. Six copy-ready prompts you can adapt for your firm's intake process.
- Workflow Builder Kit. Checklists and worksheets for mapping and reviewing your intake workflow.
- Demo: Law Firm Intake. A fictional end-to-end example showing every step in practice.
Each section ends with a review checklist. Use it to confirm the key points landed before moving on.
The human review rule
This is the most important thing in this training. Read it now, and keep it in mind for every lesson that follows.
The rule: AI output is a draft for human review. Nothing the AI produces goes to a client, into a file, or drives a decision without a qualified person reading and approving it first. Always.
This rule is not a precaution for unusual situations. It applies to every use case in this training — intake summaries, missing-information flags, urgency assessments, and draft acknowledgments. The AI prepares. A person reviews. A person approves.
There are no shortcuts to this rule. An intake summary that looks complete can still miss something critical. A draft acknowledgment that reads well can still contain an error. The only way to catch those errors is human review before anything leaves the firm.
Safe AI workflow principles
These four principles apply across every workflow in this training package.
1. AI organizes. People decide.
AI tools are good at structuring unstructured information — turning intake notes into a formatted summary, identifying what fields are missing, flagging potential urgency. They are not good at judgment calls. Whether a matter is urgent, whether a conflict might exist, whether a client situation requires escalation — those are decisions for a qualified professional, not the AI.
2. Always provide the source material.
AI performs best when you give it the actual intake notes, form responses, or call transcript to work from. Do not ask it to work from memory or general knowledge about a client situation. Paste in the source text. The more specific the input, the more reviewable the output.
3. No real client data in public AI tools.
If you are using a consumer AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Gemini, Copilot) that is not configured for your firm with appropriate data agreements, do not paste in real client names, contact details, matter descriptions, or any identifying information. Use anonymized or fictional data when testing prompts and workflows. Check with your firm's leadership before using any AI tool with client data.
4. All outbound drafts require approval before sending.
The AI-generated draft acknowledgment in this training is exactly that — a draft. It is produced for a staff member or attorney to review, edit, and approve before any communication goes to a client. This training does not support or recommend any workflow where AI drafts are sent automatically without human review.
Note on legal and professional advice: Nothing in this training constitutes legal advice, creates an attorney-client relationship, or establishes professional obligations. This training covers AI workflow education only. All firm-specific decisions about conflict screening, client communication, and matter intake remain the responsibility of qualified professionals at your firm.