AI
Using AI to Draft a Records Request
A first draft in thirty seconds is genuinely useful. Sending that draft unedited is how you get a refusal citing a statute that does not exist.
Records requests are formulaic, which is exactly the kind of writing AI does well. The danger is that the formulaic parts are right and the specific parts — statute, deadline, custodian, fee rule — are the ones it invents.
Prompt it properly
A vague prompt produces a vague letter. Give it the case.
“Draft a public records request to the [agency] in [state]. I want [specific record type] concerning [subject], covering [date range]. Write it as records to be produced, not as questions. Number each category separately. Include a paragraph asking for segregable portions and an index of anything withheld with the exemption claimed. Include a fee cap of $[amount]. Ask for electronic delivery. Leave the statute citation as [STATUTE] for me to fill in.”
That last instruction is the important one. Telling it to leave a placeholder rather than guess removes the single most likely fabrication.
Fix the statute
Never let it supply the citation. Federal FOIA is 5 U.S.C. § 552 and it binds federal agencies only. Everything else is state law with its own name and section.
Get the correct citation from the state page or the state records acts page and paste it in yourself.
Fix the deadline
It will state a deadline confidently and it may be wrong. Vermont is three business days. Rhode Island is ten with a twenty-day extension. Florida has no fixed deadline at all.
Check the real one and state it accurately, because the deadline is the leverage.
Fix the custodian
AI will address it to something generic. Send it to the office that actually holds the record — the records division, the clerk, the licensing board — and use the title that state’s law uses, whether that is Records Access Officer or something else.
Cut the padding
Drafts arrive with an introductory paragraph explaining what public records law is, a closing paragraph thanking them for their commitment to transparency, and a middle paragraph restating the request in different words.
Delete all three. Clerks process requests by the dozen; a short letter with numbered items gets handled first.
Tighten the scope yourself
AI drafts tend to be broad, and breadth invites a burden objection or a large fee estimate.
You know what you actually need. Narrow the date range, name the custodian, and specify the record type precisely.
What it is genuinely good at here
- Producing the segregability and index paragraph correctly every time
- Splitting one messy idea into clean numbered categories
- Rewriting a question you wanted to ask as a description of records that exist
- Drafting the follow-up when the deadline passes, and the appeal after that
The appeal drafting is where it saves the most time, because appeals are formulaic and the arguments that work are the same two every time. See appealing a denial.
Do not paste the subject’s details into a consumer AI service. Draft with placeholders — [SUBJECT], [ADDRESS], [CASE] — and fill them in locally afterwards. The letter is identical and nothing about your client leaves your machine.
Both sides of this
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