Pre-Suit
Why it Matters
A strong claim can die before anyone files it. The client’s story may fit no claim the law recognizes, or the deadline to sue may pass while the client waits to call a lawyer. Some claims require a step before suit, like pre-suit notice in a Florida medical malpractice case or an EEOC charge before most federal job-discrimination suits. Skip that step and a court can dismiss the case; file without checking the facts, and the court can sanction the lawyer and the client who brought it. This sorting happens at intake, before a firm agrees to take the case, and a paralegal often does the first round of it.
Current Context
On January 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Berk v. Choy (opens in a new tab) that Delaware’s affidavit-of-merit law, which requires an expert’s affidavit with a malpractice complaint, does not apply in federal court. Justice Barrett wrote for eight Justices that Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (opens in a new tab) already fixes what a plaintiff must say about the merits of a claim at the outset. Justice Jackson agreed with the result but located the conflict in Rules 3 and 12. Florida has its own screen: Chapter 766 of the Florida Statutes (opens in a new tab) requires a pre-suit investigation and a corroborating medical expert opinion, served with the notice of intent, before a medical malpractice suit. Berk did not decide what becomes of Florida’s version, but it bears on your triage in Part 1: whether a condition precedent binds a client can turn on the courthouse.
Key Concepts
Cause of Action
A cause of action is a set of facts that entitles a party to ask a court for a remedy, such as money damages or an injunction. Whether one exists depends on matching the client’s facts to a claim that Florida or federal law recognizes. Identifying the right cause of action is the first move in evaluating any potential case.
Elements of a Claim
Elements are the specific components a plaintiff must prove to win on a given cause of action. A negligence claim, for example, requires duty, breach, causation, and damages, and missing proof on any one of them defeats the claim. Before recommending a case, a litigation team checks whether the facts can support every element.
Statute of Limitations
A statute of limitations sets the deadline for filing a lawsuit: the clock usually starts when the claim arises, or for some claims when it was or should have been discovered. Most of Florida’s periods are in section 95.11, Florida Statutes, while a federal claim usually takes the period its own statute sets, a four-year federal default, or a borrowed state period. A claim filed after the deadline is usually barred no matter how strong it is, so confirming the limitations period is part of intake.
Conditions Precedent
Conditions precedent are steps a claimant must complete before a lawsuit can properly be filed. Florida requires a pre-suit investigation and notice before a medical malpractice suit, and a Title VII job-discrimination claim requires an EEOC charge and a notice of right to sue first. Failing to satisfy a condition precedent can get a case dismissed even when the underlying claim is sound.
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction
Subject-matter jurisdiction is a court’s authority to hear a particular type of case, and it decides whether a claim can go to state court, federal court, or either. A federal court can hear a claim that arises under federal law, or one between citizens of different states with more than $75,000 at stake. The court chosen sets the procedural rules and can decide whether some pre-suit steps apply, but the limitations period follows the claim into either court.
Client Intake Interview
The client intake interview is the first structured conversation with a prospective client: the firm gathers the facts and the client’s goals, then judges whether it can take the case. Florida Bar Opinion 88-6 prefers that a lawyer conduct it but permits a paralegal to, if the paralegal discloses nonlawyer status, gathers only facts, and gives no legal advice. Good intake produces the factual record that everything else in the case is built on.
Factual Investigation
Factual investigation is the work of confirming and expanding on the client’s account through documents, records, witnesses, and site inspections. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 requires an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances before a lawyer signs and files a claim. Section 57.105, Florida Statutes, can make a losing party and its lawyer split the other side’s attorney’s fees for a claim they knew or should have known lacked support.
Demand Letter
A demand letter, sent before suit, states the claim, the facts and law behind it, and the relief the client wants, usually with a deadline to respond. It opens settlement negotiations and creates a record that the other side was given a chance to resolve the matter before litigation. Some claims require a demand as a condition precedent; for the rest, it is a strategic first step.
Resources
- Google Scholar (opens in a new tab) (Free case-law search you use in Part 2 to confirm the elements of a claim against real Florida and federal opinions.)
- Westlaw via the DSC Library Legal Research Databases (opens in a new tab) (Paralegal-program access to Westlaw for pulling cases when you verify a claim’s elements.)
- Florida Statutes, Online Sunshine (opens in a new tab) (Official Florida statutes, including the limitations periods in section 95.11, the medical malpractice pre-suit rules in Chapter 766, and the fee sanction for unsupported claims in section 57.105.)
- Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Cornell LII) (opens in a new tab) (The procedural rules for federal civil suits, for checking any federal rule the AI cites.)
- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 (Cornell LII) (opens in a new tab) (The pre-filing certification that a claim has factual and legal support, the federal basis for good-faith investigation.)
- Florida Standard Jury Instructions (The Florida Bar) (opens in a new tab) (The Section 400 substantive instructions in the Civil Cases set and the Contract and Business Cases set state the elements of Florida claims you check the AI’s element list against in Part 2.)
- Time Limits for Filing a Charge (EEOC) (opens in a new tab) (The agency’s own page on the 180- and 300-day deadlines for filing a job-discrimination charge, a condition precedent you may need to check in Part 1.)
- Fla. Bar Prof’l Ethics Comm., Op. 88-6 (opens in a new tab) (Guidance on a nonlawyer conducting the initial client interview, relevant to how a paralegal handles intake.)
- LegalFuel: Client Intake Forms (The Florida Bar) (opens in a new tab) (Sample intake forms from The Florida Bar’s practice resource center to model your own intake questions on.)
What to Do
An AI will write three short accounts from prospective clients, each describing a Florida dispute, and your first call is which case the firm should take. From there you map the strongest claim, check its elements against primary sources, and draft the demand letter a firm sends before it sues. The point is to practice the judgment that decides whether a claim is worth pursuing, and to see where AI speeds that work and where it needs checking.
Part 1: Triage Three Potential Cases
Open a session with the Fact-Pattern Simulator prompt below. It will ask you to choose three types of civil claims from a list. Then it writes three short narratives, each in the voice of a prospective client describing a Florida dispute. Read all three the way an intake paralegal would, looking past the emotion in the account for the facts that suggest an actual legal claim. One of the three is designed to be the strongest case, but the prompt will not tell you which.
In your reflection, write a brief triage memo naming the case you would recommend the firm pursue and explaining your reasoning. Weigh the seriousness of the harm and the damages at stake against how provable the claim looks and whether a limitations deadline may already have passed. Consider too which court could hear the matter, state or federal, since the court sets the procedural rules and can decide whether some pre-suit steps apply. There is no single right answer, and the memo is graded on the quality of the judgment rather than the choice.
Part 2: Build a Case-Development Plan and Verify the Elements
Take the single fact pattern you chose as strongest and paste it into the Claim and Element Mapper prompt. It will name the most viable cause of action and lay out the legal elements you would have to prove. It will also propose intake questions tied to each element and say whether the claim would normally be filed in Florida or federal court. Treat this output as a draft to be checked, not an answer key.
Now verify the elements against primary authority. For a Florida claim, compare the AI’s element list to the Section 400 substantive instructions in the Florida Standard Jury Instructions, which state the elements Florida juries are told to find. Use the Civil Cases set for a tort such as negligence or defamation, and the Contract and Business Cases set for a breach of contract or a deceptive trade practice. For a federal claim, confirm the governing standard through Google Scholar or Westlaw and check any procedural rule the AI cites against the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on Cornell LII. Note in your reflection where the AI was accurate, where it was vague or wrong, and any element or authority it invented.
Part 3: Draft the Demand Letter
Continue with the same fact pattern and run the Demand Letter Drafter prompt. It first builds out a realistic set of facts, such as dates, parties, and communications. Then it drafts a persuasive demand letter on that claim, citing Florida or federal authority and setting a deadline to respond.
Before you trust any citation in that letter, run the Citation Verifier prompt on it. AI models can produce citations that look real and are not, and a fabricated case in a demand letter costs the firm its credibility and can raise ethical problems. Confirm every cited authority against a primary source, correct or remove anything you cannot verify, and then save the final letter as a Word document.
Part 4: Write and Submit Your Reflection
Write a reflection of 400 to 600 words on the full process. Discuss what it was like to use AI for case evaluation and drafting. Then assess the accuracy of its legal analysis and the quality of its writing, pointing to specific strengths and weaknesses you saw. Fold in the triage memo from Part 1 and the verification notes from Part 2. Attach the demand letter you saved as a Word document to your forum post.
Part 5: Share Chat Link
Include one AI chat link with a 1–2 sentence explanation of what the conversation shows and why you chose to share it.
Suggested AI Prompts
Use these prompts as a starting point, then adjust them to fit your goal. Strong prompting develops through trial, revision, and testing. It’s a foundational skill that grows into more advanced AI work such as context engineering and agent-based workflows.
Fact-Pattern Simulator
You are a fact-pattern simulator for a Florida-based civil litigation course that covers both state and federal claims. First, show me a numbered list of nine types of civil claims that can arise for people and small businesses in Florida, written in plain language a non-lawyer would understand. Include a mix that could end up in either state or federal court, such as contract disputes, property damage, negligence, defamation, landlord-tenant disputes, employment discrimination, consumer protection violations, professional malpractice, and civil rights violations. Ask me to choose exactly three. Once I choose, write three separate, realistic fact patterns, one for each claim I picked, each told in the first person as if a prospective client were describing their situation in a short written account to a law firm. Set every fact pattern in a real Florida location, give each three to five paragraphs with enough concrete detail to suggest more than one legal issue, and use no legal jargon or statute names. Make one of the three clearly the strongest case based on the seriousness of the harm, the damages at stake, or how solid the claim looks, but do not tell me which one it is. Label them Fact Pattern #1, #2, and #3 with clear spacing. Then ask me which case I would recommend the firm pursue and to explain my reasoning.
This prompt pairs role assignment with a deliberate withholding move: because it never says which case is strongest, the triage stays yours. Asking for client-voice accounts instead of tidy legal summaries keeps the issue-spotting on your side too.
Claim and Element Mapper
I’m a college student in a Civil Litigation course that covers Florida and federal practice. Act as a senior litigation paralegal at a Florida firm. Start by asking me to paste a fact pattern for a possible civil case. Once I paste it, evaluate the causes of action the facts could support under Florida or federal law, identify the single strongest and most viable claim, and explain briefly why it offers the clearest path to recovery. State whether that claim would normally be filed in Florida state court or federal court, and why. Then build a Case-Development Checklist in two parts. Part one lists the legal elements of that primary claim using correct terminology, and cites the controlling Florida or federal authority for each element where you can, or names the standard formulation if you cannot. Part two gives a sequenced set of intake questions an attorney or paralegal should ask the client to gather facts supporting or undercutting each element, with a one-line note after each question explaining what it is meant to elicit and which element it connects to. Keep the tone professional and precise. When you finish, tell me plainly which elements or citations you are least confident about so I know where to verify, and ask whether I want to explore other possible claims from the same facts.
A two-part checklist is structured output, and it makes the model cover every element and tie each intake question to what it must prove. The closing request to name its least-confident points turns the model’s own uncertainty into a verification to-do list.
Demand Letter Drafter
I’m a college student in a Civil Litigation course studying pre-suit practice and demand letters in Florida and federal civil matters. Act as a Florida litigation professional and help me draft a demand letter for a client. First, ask me to paste a fact pattern describing a civil dispute. Once I paste it, generate a realistic and internally consistent set of specific facts the dispute would likely involve, such as dates, the parties, key events, communications between them, and relevant documents, so the letter reads like it came from a real file. Then use those facts to draft a professional, persuasive demand letter. The letter should open with a factual narrative of the dispute, identify the legal claim or claims, and cite specific Florida or federal authority that supports the client’s position. It should then make a firm but reasonable demand for compensation or other relief, recognizing that an opening demand usually aims higher than the expected settlement, and close with a response deadline and an invitation to resolve the matter before suit. After the draft, list every legal authority you cited in it, each on its own line, so I can verify them, and ask whether I want to revise the facts, adjust the tone, or change the citations.
Building the facts before the letter is decomposition, and a letter written from specific facts is sharper than one written from a vague instruction. Asking it to list its citations at the end sets up the next step, because those are exactly the claims you cannot take on faith.
Citation Verifier
I am going to paste a demand letter that an AI drafted, and I need to check its legal citations before anyone relies on it. Act as a careful verifier, not a cheerleader. Pull out every legal authority the letter cites, whether it is a Florida statute, a federal rule, or a case, and list them in a table with three columns: the citation as written, what the letter claims it stands for, and what I should check to confirm it. For each one, tell me exactly where to verify it: the Florida Statutes site for a Florida statute, Cornell LII for a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, or Google Scholar for a case. Flag any citation that looks doubtful, internally inconsistent, or too convenient for the argument, and say why. Do not assume a citation is correct because it is formatted properly. At the end, remind me that you may have missed a fabricated citation and that I am responsible for confirming each one against the primary source myself.
Casting the model as a skeptical verifier, one told not to trust clean formatting, is red-teaming aimed at its habit of approving earlier output. Routing each citation to a named primary source then builds the check into your workflow instead of leaving it to trust.