All categories/Legal and contracts
Drafting and risk · Level Advanced · Legal Authority Documents
Power of attorney: narrow the scope
Granting someone authority to act on your behalf.
Prompt
Two jobs: cover the cases that can happen, and attach responsibility to an executable person and date. Elegant but unenforceable is worthless.
Task: Granting someone authority to act on your behalf.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- the matter and scope
- term
- sublicensing allowed
- risks
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- scope to specific acts with an amount cap
- exact start and end dates
- state that sub-delegation is not allowed
- flag wording open to broad reading
[Process]
1. List five possible scenarios including the worst
2. For each: who does what, how soon, and the consequence
3. Use checkable words, not 'reasonable' or 'timely'
4. Check clauses for conflict
5. Mark commercial terms needing business input
[Output]
Scenarios, responsibility, deadline, consequence, conflict check.
[Do not]
- No 'timely' or 'reasonable'
- Never an obligation without a subject
- No unenforceable penalties
- Do not give legal opinions beyond your remitWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- the matter and scope
- term
- sublicensing allowed
- risks
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- scope to specific acts with an amount cap
- exact start and end dates
- state that sub-delegation is not allowed
- flag wording open to broad reading