The Discovery Protocol

• The Estate Triage· When a parent dies or loses capacity. Before, ideally.
• The Sample Lawyer· The clearance pipeline for the sample you already used.
• The Pre-Brief· One page on them. One page on you. Before every meeting.

text
Before you answer anything substantive, state:
1. What you know about this matter (sources you have, if any).
2. What you do not know (gaps you are aware of).
3. The confidence interval you would attach to your initial answer.

Treat this as a sworn proffer. I will impeach you with it later
if your subsequent answers contradict it.

• FRCP discovery practice
• leading-vs-open question hierarchy
• hearsay framework
• 2026 federal AI-prompt privilege jurisprudence
• Claude tool-use API
• the deposition arc
• impeachment of a witness
• Daubert methodology disclosure

If a name is unfamiliar, that's the gap. The list is the curriculum.

1. 01

   Lay the foundation. The model states what it knows, what it doesn't, and its initial confidence.

2. 02

   Issue interrogatories. One question per turn; no compound questions; no presupposed facts.

3. 03

   Use open questions only. Save leading questions for impeachment.

4. 04

   Request admissions for every inference you intend to rely on downstream.

   Admit you do not have access to the contract dated 12 Jan 2024 referenced above.

5. 05

   Move to leading questions once the foundation is on the record.

6. 06

   Impeach. Quote the model's earlier answer back to it; ask it to reconcile.

7. 07

   Lock the testimony. Ask: "What would change your answer?" Note every condition.

8. 08

   Demand a Daubert-style methodology disclosure before relying on any output in a filing.

Most prompting is leading questions and accepted answers; lawyers learned the cost of that in their first three trials. This protocol borrows the deposition arc: foundation, open, leading, impeachment, lock. Confidence drops in honest places and holds in dishonest ones. You learn to read the difference. The Federal Rules already taught us how to test a witness; the model gets the same standard.

• Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
  Cornell Law School / Legal Information Institute · primary source
  The procedural source the Discovery Protocol borrows from.
• Kirkland & Ellis; Two Federal Courts Chart Diverging Paths on AI-Prompt Discoverability (March 2026)
  Kirkland & Ellis LLP · primary source
  The 2026 case-law update on whether LLM prompts and outputs are discoverable.
• EDRM; Cross-Examine Your AI: The Lawyer's Cure for Hallucinations (Dec 2025)
  EDRM · primary source
  The first widely-circulated framing of the deposition arc applied to LLM prompting.
• Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993)
  Justia · primary source
  The methodology-disclosure standard for expert testimony. Borrowed here for AI-output reliance.

• The Pre-Brief↗
  One page on them. One page on you. Before every meeting.