“We’re able to vigorously represent the client.”
Brian Lehman
Attorney, 26 years in legal research and writing
- Practice
- New York state and federal litigation
- Drafts in
- Claude
- Workspace
- DocketDrafter New York
Before: the AI worked. Everything around it didn't.
Brian was not new to AI. He drafted with ChatGPT for hours a day and had his own method: bring the cases he trusted, build a brief one section at a time, and correct the same things in every draft, from adding paragraph citations to the complaint to stripping out the bold text that makes a filing look AI-written. He has spent 26 years in legal research and writing, has clerked for judges, and prepares motions, memoranda, and letters for New York litigation firms.
The drafting was fast. What came after was not. Every section still ended up pasted into Word, where the captions, index numbers, headings, signature blocks, and tables of authorities were rebuilt by hand, often late at night before a deadline. Preferences he had explained to the AI one day had to be explained again the next.
“I spend 50% reformatting.”
Brian, describing his AI workflow in March 2026
After: the same result every time, without asking twice
With DocketDrafter connected to Claude, every document comes back in Brian's format from the first draft: his font, his caption layout, and the right citation style for the court. Memoranda of law arrive with the table of contents and table of authorities already built, and he no longer checks the caption and signature block for errors that crept in.
“All the letters that I'm giving to other attorneys to review are now just uniform.”
He also reviews each document as it will look when filed, which is how he has always preferred to edit.
“If you're taking your craft seriously, you want to see where certain lines fall, where certain arguments fall. Does this look too cluttered on the page? And so what DocketDrafter did was just make that instantaneous.”
That consistency is what frees his attention. The parts of a filing that used to need a second look now come out the same way every time, so the hours go to the argument.
“I don't think that people realize how much lawyers have to switch gears from analyzing legal issues to making sure that it's Times New Roman 12-point font. Like, that's a difficult thing to do.”
He told us once. We built it in.
Brian did not build Projects, write skills, or learn a new settings screen. We connected DocketDrafter to his Claude account on one screen-share, then set up his format from a sample document and his firm's public filings.
As he used it, he pointed out the details a careful litigator notices. Each one became a permanent default instead of another instruction to repeat:
- Tanbook citations in state court, Bluebook in federal court
- A comma after the year in every mid-sentence date
- His caption layout, down to where the index number sits
- Bold top-level entries in the table of contents
We also connected CourtListener to his Claude, so he can research cases in the same session where he drafts.
“It was just a matter of a Zoom meeting, you guided me, we shared the screen, I connected it, and after that it was relatively easy.”
More cases, and motions that are now worth making
The time Brian saves goes into more work. His team now takes matters that were not worth the hours before. One example is the motion to strike affirmative defenses under the CPLR, which he once considered not worth the squeeze. He gives Claude the complaint and the answer and asks for the full motion.
- 1Notice of motion
- 2Attorney affirmation
- 3Memorandum of law
- 4Proposed order
Each document comes back court-formatted for review. He then checks every case and every quote before sending the package to the supervising attorney.
“Now you have a very fulsome motion to strike affirmative defenses.”
“The deadlines aren't as tight.”
Brian used to plan backwards from a filing deadline. A memorandum of law had to reach a paralegal, or he had to block out hours for the table of authorities, well before the court's date. Now the tables build themselves and every document comes back in his format, so the last hours before a deadline go to the argument.
The same holds when something breaks late. If discovery falls through or a motion lands the night before a hearing, he can still get a polished letter to the attorney that evening, without waiting on anyone.
“It's 8 o'clock at night, you're exhausted, but with using all these tools, you're able to actually do the same argument that you would have put forward otherwise.”
“If you took away one thing from me, this one would be the most annoying one to take away.”
Brian Lehman
Want what Brian has? Start with the New York workspace.
Brian drafts in the DocketDrafter New York workspace. Your firm gets the same workspace on day one: New York templates, court forms, and memoranda with the tables already built, all working without any setup. When you want documents that match your own style, we'll set up your caption, fonts, letterhead, and drafting preferences the same way we did for Brian.
What Brian has
What your firm gets
- Memoranda of law with the table of contents and table of authorities already built
- Supported brief templates that generate both tables from your headings and citations
- His caption, font, and citation style on every document
- New York house formats on day one, or your firm’s style, with customization included
- A full motion package from the complaint and the answer
- Templates for New York Supreme Court and the Southern, Eastern, Northern, and Western Districts
- Court forms without fighting Adobe
- UCS-840 RJIs, applicable addenda, and other supported Unified Court System forms
- CourtListener case research inside Claude
- Help connecting CourtListener or the research tools you prefer during your coaching sessions
- Setup handled on a single call, with a person to ask afterward
- A 30-minute onboarding call, first-month implementation, two coaching sessions a month, and email support