For Paraplanners ·
What you'll accomplish
The client's attorney sent a trust document of forty pages, and the advisor wants to know who the successor trustee is, how distributions work, and who is named as guardian before Thursday. You will upload a redacted copy to Claude and get a table of provision, section reference and plain-language summary. Every row is yours to check against the document before the advisor sees it.
What you'll need
Data caution: Estate documents name beneficiaries, minor children, fiduciaries and sometimes health details. Unless the CCO has approved a Claude workspace for client documents, redact first. Replace names with roles ("Grantor", "Trustee", "Successor Trustee", "Child 1"), delete addresses and account numbers, and remove any health information. Then check Claude's data settings: look for whether chats and uploads can be used to train models and how long they are kept, and turn off training use if the setting exists on your plan. A consumer plan can differ from a business plan on this point.
What you should see: the same structure as the original, with roles where names were. Troubleshooting: If you redact with a black box in a PDF, make sure the redaction removes the text underneath rather than only covering it. Open the file and try to select the hidden text.
Open the Claude upload help page and confirm the file type is supported and the length is within range. At the time of writing that page says Claude reads both text and visuals in PDFs of 100 pages or fewer, and text only for longer ones. For non-PDF documents it extracts text only. Page references should use the PDF viewer page numbers, as the help page advises.
What you should see: the file name appearing in the message area. Troubleshooting: If the upload is rejected, convert it to a PDF or split it into articles.
Use the prompt in the next section. It forbids interpretation, which keeps the output a summary of what the document says and nothing more.
Open the document beside the table. For each row, go to the section it cites and read the text.
Correct any row that is wrong or vague, then mark each row "checked" with your initials in the working copy of the table. The advisor reads the summary. The client's attorney answers questions about what any provision means legally.
Attorney questions list
From the table above, list questions the advisor may want to ask the client's attorney about unclear or cross-referenced provisions. Phrase each as a question. Do not answer them.
Compare two versions
I have attached the original and an amendment, both redacted. List each provision that appears in both and show where the wording differs. Quote section numbers. Do not say which version is better.
Beneficiary and fiduciary roster
List every named role in the document (for example Trustee, Successor Trustee, Agent, Guardian) with its section reference. Use the role labels only.
Missing items
List standard sections that I would expect in a trust document of this kind that do not appear in this one. Label this as a checklist for the attorney, not a finding.