The city attorney who takes back the outside counsel work
$414,290top of the range in Nevada · middle $159,670 / yr
AI augments this role
City Attorneys in the United States earn a median of $159,670 a year. Pay starts near $78,360. Pay reaches $414,290 at the top of the range in Nevada, the best-paying state for this work among those with at least 500 people in the job.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (Lawyers, SOC 23-1011). Last checked 9 September 2026.
Entry level
$78,360
Top of the range · Nevada
$414,290
Education
Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree
Wages — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (Lawyers). Top of the range is the highest state-level figure among states with at least 500 people in the job. AI-impact rating is PayCrunch's editorial assessment. Updated September 2026.
🆕 New & Trending AI Tools for City AttorneyReviewed September 2026
We track new AI-tool launches every week and refresh this list — here’s what’s gaining traction for City Attorney work right now.
HarveyNEWEnterprise / see site
AI built for legal work — research, drafting, and analysis for firms.
How a City Attorney uses it: draft, research, and analyze matters far faster with legal-grade AI
Clio DuoNEWAdd-on / see site
AI built into Clio for legal admin, billing, and drafting.
How a City Attorney uses it: automate intake, deadlines, billing, and routine drafting
SupioNEWEnterprise / see site
AI for case analysis, chronologies, and drafting (personal injury focus).
How a City Attorney uses it: build case timelines and draft from the record automatically
NotebookLMNEWFree / $7.99 mo
Google tool that answers questions grounded only in the documents you give it — with citations.
How a City Attorney uses it: load your own manuals, policies, or PDFs and ask questions that stay accurate to the source
CoCounselEnterprise / see site
Thomson Reuters' legal AI assistant for research and document review.
How a City Attorney uses it: run trusted legal research and review documents at speed
SpellbookPaid / see site
AI contract drafting and review inside Microsoft Word.
How a City Attorney uses it: draft and redline contracts and flag risky clauses as you type
Lexis+ AIEnterprise / see site
LexisNexis legal research with AI answers and citations.
How a City Attorney uses it: get cited legal answers grounded in a trusted case-law database
ChatGPTFree / $20 mo
The most-used AI assistant — writing, analysis, research, and images from a plain-language chat.
How a City Attorney uses it: draft emails and documents, summarize long files, and get instant answers to on-the-job questions
ClaudeFree / $20 mo
AI assistant known for careful writing, long-document analysis, and coding.
How a City Attorney uses it: analyze big reports or spreadsheets and turn messy notes into clean, finished writing
The ordinance draft would have shut the Saturday market. A definition of "structure" swept in every pop-up tent, and the packet was already headed for the council. The city attorney stopped it on Tuesday, sat with the deputy who had drafted the language, and narrowed the sentence so the city could regulate permanent stalls without banning a farmers' canopy. The same afternoon, purchasing wanted a services contract signed before anyone had read the indemnity. The attorney held the signature, marked the clause that would have made the city pay for the vendor's mistakes, and put both matters on the list for the council's lawyer to explain in open session. Advice to the governing body, ordinances that can be enforced, and the city's litigation: that is the occupation.
A person preparing for the office can treat that Tuesday as the real advertisement. The work is legal, municipal, and often public. It is the city's lawyer, not a candidate's strategist. Once the term or the appointment begins, the clients are the city and its council, and the product is advice they can use without walking into a lawsuit they did not intend.
Ordinances, advice, and the cases with the city's name
The legislative half of the week is drafting and review. Department heads send proposed ordinances on zoning, business licences, streets, animals, noise, and whatever else the city has decided to regulate. The attorney, or a deputy, reads them for legality, for conflict with existing city code, and for language a judge could apply. Vague prohibitions feel tough in a hearing and collapse later. The attorney says so before the vote, in a memo or out loud, with a rewrite attached when there is time. Resolutions, contracts, and intergovernmental agreements get the same reading. A council that adopts a text the lawyer has not seen is a council that has chosen surprise.
Advice is the daily product. The mayor, the manager if the city has one, the clerk, the police chief, the planning director, and individual council members all want to know what they may do. The attorney's client is the city. Advice to a single member still has to serve that client, which means the lawyer does not become a private counselor for one official's political life. Open-meeting duties and public-records duties are a standing part of the advice: what has to happen in public, what a closed session may cover under the state's rules, and what a resident is entitled to see. The explanation stays practical and stays clear of turning a meeting into a seminar. Officials need a yes, a no, or a way to do the thing lawfully.
Litigation is the other half, and it arrives whether the council is ready or not. Someone sues over a zoning denial, a police incident, a slip on a sidewalk, an employment decision, or a contract the city ended. The city attorney answers the complaint, decides what the city will admit, recommends whether outside counsel is needed, and brings settlement authority back to the council when the council holds that authority. Discovery, motions, and trial strategy are managed so the city's story stays consistent with the documents. A city attorney who vanishes until the courthouse steps, leaving departments to improvise statements, creates the record the other side will use. The useful habit is early: gather the file, tell the council the risk in plain words, and keep the public statement inside what the lawyer can defend.
The room where much of this becomes visible is the council meeting. The attorney sits where the members can ask for a legal read before they adopt an ordinance or approve a contract. Answers have to be short enough for a hearing and accurate enough to live in the clerk's record. After the meeting, the office turns the votes into final documents, notices, and, when needed, the filing that starts or ends a case. Residents who speak at the lectern are not the client. They are the public. The attorney treats them with respect and still remembers who holds the lawyer's duty.
A law degree and admission to the bar
The credential is the one every lawyer in that state holds: a law degree, then admission to the state bar. Law school teaches research, writing, and the core subjects. Clinics or internships in a city office, a legislature, or a firm that represents municipalities are the part that starts to look like this job. After the degree, the state admits candidates who have completed the bar examination the state uses and who satisfy the state's character review. That admission is the licence. It proves the person may practice law in the state. A city may not lawfully hand its legal work to someone the bar has not admitted.
The licence is personal and statewide, and the city job sits on top of it. Some states require registration as in-house or government counsel. Some cities write into the charter that the city attorney must be a member of that state's bar and a resident, or must have practiced for a period the charter names. Those local rules are the ones to read in the charter and the posting, because they differ. The bar licence remains the foundation. Malpractice coverage, or the governmental immunity and indemnity rules that apply to a public lawyer, should be understood before the first opinion letter goes out. A private law firm's habits do not automatically match a public office's rules about clients and files.
Who the client is
The client is the municipal corporation. Council members, the mayor, and staff receive advice because they act for that client. When one official's interest splits from the city's, the city attorney says so and points the official toward separate counsel. The bar licence is what makes the advice the practice of law. The charter is what makes it the city's.
How cities actually hire their lawyer
Structures differ, and the posting shows which one this city uses. Many councils appoint a city attorney and can remove that person under the charter. Some voters elect the office. Smaller cities often contract with a firm and name a partner as city attorney while the rest of the firm's municipal group serves as deputies. A candidate should know which structure they are entering, because appointment, election, and contract produce different kinds of job security and different relationships to the council. The legal work after the person is in the chair is the same family of tasks.
The usual path into an appointed office runs through the office itself or through a firm that represents cities. New lawyers join as assistants or deputies: they draft ordinances, handle code-enforcement dockets, respond to routine records requests, and second-chair a case. Mid-level lawyers take land use, employment, or a slice of the litigation. The city attorney is the person the council trusts with the hard advice and the outside-counsel decisions. A firm lawyer becomes a candidate by being the deputy clients already call, then by applying when a city recruits. Resumes that matter list municipal matters actually handled, not a generic interest in "public service."
Interviews, for an appointed post, are conversations with the council or a search committee about judgment. They will ask how you tell a council no, how you handle a member who wants advice against another member, and how you staff a small office. Answers should be about the city as client and about process: written advice, timely review, clear options. Where the office is elected, the path includes qualifying for the ballot under local rules and winning the election. The work that follows is still law: the bar licence and a record of municipal files are what the chair requires after the votes are counted.
Deputy, city attorney, then a wider public practice
The early years are volume and supervision. A deputy learns the city's code, the way this council likes memos, and the cases that never quite end. The lawyers who become city attorney are the ones who can run a meeting without grandstanding and who bring the council a risk they can understand. From the top job, some stay for a long tenure and become the institutional memory. Some move to a larger city, where the office is a department with divisions for land use, labor, police, and transactions. Some return to a firm and represent many municipalities at once, which is a different practice with the same subject matter.
Other later seats exist. A city attorney may become a judge, counsel to a state agency, or the lawyer for a special district or a school board. Teaching local-government law is a side role some keep. Each of those moves still rests on the bar licence and on a reputation for advice that was accurate when it was unpopular. The reputation that ends the path is the opposite: hidden problems, ordinances drafted to please a single member, litigation strategy explained for the first time on the eve of trial.
Management of the office is its own skill once more than one lawyer is on the payroll. Assigning the land-use hearing, reviewing a deputy's opinion before it reaches the council, and deciding which cases stay in-house are the city attorney's choices. A brilliant courtroom lawyer who cannot supervise will drown a growing city. A careful manager who never reads the complaint will miss the case that mattered. The job wants both, in the proportion the city's docket demands.
A city salary beside the general lawyer chart
A lawyer comparing an offer to serve as a city's attorney should set that salary against the May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics series for Lawyers, a profession-wide series that includes firm lawyers and public lawyers together, not a series drawn only from municipal counsel.
The entry figure is $78,360. The median is $159,670. The gap between them is $81,310. A deputy in a small office, early after bar admission, may see an offer nearer $78,360. The city attorney, or a senior deputy in a large office, should treat $159,670 as the national middle for lawyers generally and should notice if a municipal offer sits far under it without a reason the city can explain, such as a part-time contract or a very small docket. The $81,310 span is wide because the lawyer series itself runs from newer lawyers to established ones. It describes that spread. It does not guarantee a city will move an employee along it on a fixed schedule.
State medians are typical pay for lawyers in that state, and they are not the high end of the range. New York posts the chart's strongest state median, $207,860, a full $48,190 over the national median. The District of Columbia shows $195,190. California shows $195,080. Massachusetts shows $176,680. Delaware shows $173,510. Mississippi's median, the lowest listed, is $91,690. A city-attorney offer in New York that is benchmarked only against $159,670 ignores a state median of $207,860 for lawyers there. An offer in Mississippi should be read next to $91,690 as typical lawyer pay in that state, with the national median as the broader context. Using another state's median as if it were local is how a negotiation becomes fiction.
Nevada is where the published range reaches $414,290 at the top, a high end the Bureau could report because enough lawyers worked there. The distance from the national median of $159,670 to that Nevada high end is $254,620. Nevada's figure is the high end of the range, a different number from any state median listed above. A counsel to a large city, or a firm partner whose municipal practice is deep, might mention $414,290 only when an offer is genuinely being discussed as the top of published lawyer pay. A deputy's first public salary will not resemble it, and quoting it there ends the conversation. The useful comparison for most city halls is the national median of $159,670, the state median if the state appears here, and a clear account of whether the post is full time, appointed, elected, or a contract with a firm.
Bring those distinctions into the room in that order, and name the series as lawyers generally so the council hears that private-firm pay is inside the same chart. Then talk about the docket: night meetings, litigation load, whether outside counsel is already retained, and who supervises the deputies. The chart keeps the salary from floating free of any published lawyer figure. The city's cases and its ordinances are what make this particular chair worth a particular number inside that wide profession.
The top of City Attorney pay — and how to get there with AI
$414,290what City Attorney pay reaches in Nevada
Highest state-level top-of-range annual wage for Lawyers, among states with at least 500 people in the job. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
And the role it leads to — Chief Executives — reaches $772,840 in Oregon.
$78,360entry$159,670middle$414,290top end
City attorneys at the top of this range hold a second specialty their council cannot hire locally, land use, public finance, labour negotiation or public records, sitting on top of the ordinance work every city attorney already does.
Studying statutes, decisions and the regulations of quasi-judicial bodies, drafting ordinances and contracts, and interpreting the code for a department that has already made its decision is priced at whatever a general municipal lawyer costs. The premium sits in the matters cities cannot staff and currently send to a firm: entitlement fights, bond work, collective bargaining, discipline, records litigation. Reading a long regulatory record and producing a first pass at a contract now takes a fraction of the time it did, which is where the hours for a second specialty come from. Nothing reaches the council on a summary you have not checked against the code yourself.
Your playbook, by where you are now
Just startingLearn the code you were handed
Read the charter and the municipal code end to end once, keeping a list of every provision that conflicts with state law.
Sit through planning commission and council items you were not assigned, so you see how quasi-judicial decisions really get made.
Draft each ordinance against a checklist of findings, notice and effective dates, so nothing reaches the agenda missing an element.
Keep ordinances, staff reports and minutes in NotebookLM and question them rather than re-reading three years of agendas.
What proves it: A conflicts list between the municipal code and state law that department heads actually use.
Realistic span: the first three years in a city office
A few years inAdd what the city currently buys outside
Read a year of outside counsel invoices and identify the subject the city pays a firm to handle every time.
Complete the bar section work, certificate or training that subject requires, and finish it inside a year.
Second chair one matter in that subject with the outside firm before taking the next one alone.
Negotiate the contractual agreements yourself, franchise, development, interlocal, instead of marking up what the other side drafted.
Track matters, outside spend and outcomes in Microsoft Excel so bringing work in-house is a number rather than an assertion.
What proves it: One subject moved from outside counsel to your desk, with the invoice history behind the decision.
Realistic span: years four through nine
ExperiencedRun an office cities recruit from
Manage the office as a practice: conflicts checks, file standards, who covers which department, what a matter should cost.
Advise the council directly where the exposure is real, and write the recommendation in your own words.
Publish your reading of a recurring municipal question so neighbouring cities argue from your memo.
Move between cities deliberately, since the specialty travels and Nevada prices this work highest.
Bring a deputy into the specialty so the city is not exposed the month you leave.
What proves it: A specialty practice inside the city office, and a deputy who can carry it without you.
Realistic span: year ten onward
The next 90 days
In the next ninety days, pull the last twelve months of outside counsel invoices and sort them by subject rather than by firm. Almost every city has one or two recurring categories, and it is rarely the exotic litigation people assume, it is usually land use, employment or records. Work out how many hours went out the door in the largest category and what training would let you keep it. Then write a short memo to the manager and council proposing which of those matters comes in-house, what you need to be ready, and how you will report on it. That memo is the beginning of a specialty, and it makes the case in the city's own vocabulary: cost, risk and control.
Wage figures: BLS OEWS, May 2025. The playbook is PayCrunch editorial guidance, not a guarantee of pay or placement.
Every figure is the national median from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS) shown on that role’s own page.
Never used AI before? Start here (2 minutes).
Start with a legal-grade AI tool, not a consumer chatbot. If your office has Lexis+ AI, Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel, or Thomson Reuters CoCounsel, run your next research memo or document review through it — these are built for confidentiality and real citations. The first drafted memo you verify and file will show you the hours it saves.
For general, non-confidential work — plain-language explainers, timelines, first-draft policy language phrased generically — ChatGPT, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot help, but keep all privileged and case-specific facts out of them. Verify every citation before it leaves your desk.
The one rule, forever: Legal ethics come first. Never paste privileged, attorney-client, closed-session, or confidential personnel or litigation material into a consumer AI tool — use only secure, legal-grade platforms, and assume anything you type could become a public record. Verify every AI-provided citation in Westlaw or Lexis before it reaches a brief or the council: fabricated cases have gotten lawyers sanctioned. AI is a drafting and research assistant; the licensed attorney owns every word and every legal conclusion.
The plays — exact steps, exact prompts
Do these in order. Each one is copy-paste ready. You do not need to know anything about AI going in.
1
Cut legal research and memo drafting from days to hours
Why this pays: A municipal office is buried in research on land use, employment, public finance, and constitutional questions. An attorney who produces well-supported memos far faster handles more matters at a higher level — the throughput and reliability that earn senior and chief-counsel pay.
Lexis+ AIWestlaw Precision with CoCounselPerplexity
1
Run research in Lexis+ AI or Westlaw Precision (CoCounsel), which draft answers grounded in real, citable authority — then read and verify every case before you rely on it.
2
Use AI to structure the memo and pressure-test your analysis.
Copy-paste this prompt
Act as a municipal law research assistant. Outline a legal memo on whether [a city can impose a short-term rental cap under its zoning authority] in [state]. Give the issue, the analytical framework, the categories of authority to check (state enabling statutes, home-rule, preemption, constitutional limits), likely counterarguments, and the questions I must resolve. Do not invent citations — mark where I need to pull authority.
Never trust an AI-supplied citation until you've read it in Westlaw/Lexis; verify every one. Keep confidential facts out of general tools.
3
Finalize with verified authority and your own judgment — you sign the memo, not the AI.
What you'll haveMore matters resolved faster with solid support — the reliable output that carries you to senior and chief-counsel pay.
2
Draft ordinances, contracts, and staff reports at speed
Why this pays: Drafting is the bulk of municipal legal work. An attorney who produces clean first-draft ordinances, agreements, and council reports in minutes frees time for the judgment calls and political work that define the top of the office — and the pay.
SpellbookCoCounselClaude
1
Use Spellbook or CoCounsel to draft and redline contracts and ordinances against your standards, and to flag risky or missing clauses.
2
Generate a first-draft ordinance and staff report to edit.
Copy-paste this prompt
Draft a first-pass city ordinance to [regulate sidewalk vending] for a council's review. Include findings and purpose, definitions, permit requirements, operating standards, enforcement and penalties, and a severability clause, in standard municipal-code style. Add a plain-language staff-report summary for council and a list of the policy choices they must decide. Generic template — I'll insert local specifics and verify against our code.
AI drafts structure and boilerplate; you tailor to local law, verify enabling authority, and own the final language.
3
Reconcile every draft with your municipal code and state enabling authority before it goes on an agenda.
What you'll haveClean drafts produced in minutes and refined by your judgment — the leverage that lets a lean office do big-city work.
3
Handle public-records requests and e-discovery without drowning
Why this pays: Public-records and litigation discovery are massive time sinks for cities — and mishandling them creates liability. An attorney who uses AI to search, review, and redact at scale protects the city and reclaims enormous time, making them indispensable to leadership.
EverlawRelativity aiRCoCounsel
1
Use Everlaw or Relativity AI review to cluster, prioritize, and search large record sets, and to speed first-pass privilege and PII redaction — then verify before release.
2
Build a defensible review-and-redaction protocol.
Copy-paste this prompt
Help me design a workflow to respond to a large [public records / discovery] request: how to scope the search, use AI-assisted review to prioritize and cluster documents, identify likely privileged or exempt material and PII for redaction, and document the process so it's defensible. List the exemption categories I must check under [state public records law] and the human-review checkpoints I can't skip.
AI triages; a lawyer must confirm every privilege call and redaction before release — an over- or under-disclosure is on you.
3
Keep a human-verified log of exemptions and redactions so the response withstands challenge.
What you'll haveMassive record sets handled accurately and defensibly — protecting the city and freeing you for higher-value work.
4
Prep council briefings, litigation, and negotiations faster
Why this pays: The visible value of a city attorney is clear counsel to council and strong performance in litigation and negotiation. AI that digests records, builds chronologies, and drafts arguments sharpens that performance — the reputation that earns the top job.
CoCounselClaudeClearbrief
1
Use CoCounsel or Claude to summarize depositions, build case chronologies, and outline arguments; use Clearbrief to check that every factual assertion ties to the record.
2
Turn a complex matter into a council-ready briefing.
Copy-paste this prompt
Summarize this [land-use appeal] for a city council briefing: the facts, the legal standard, the options before the council, the litigation risk of each, and a clear recommendation, in plain English for non-lawyer officials. Then give me the three toughest questions a council member or the public might ask, with concise answers. I'll insert the specifics from the record.
Use redacted or generic facts in general tools; verify every legal standard and risk assessment yourself before advising council.
3
Rehearse the hard questions so your council guidance and courtroom answers are tight.
What you'll haveSharper counsel, briefs, and negotiation prep — the visible performance that builds the reputation behind chief-counsel pay.
5
Monitor legal changes and set your office's AI policy
Why this pays: The attorney who keeps the city ahead of new laws and safely governs AI use becomes the office's indispensable modernizer — the leadership profile that leads to the appointed or elected top role and its pay.
PerplexityLexis+ AIChatGPT
1
Use Perplexity and Lexis+ AI to monitor new state legislation, court decisions, and AG opinions affecting municipalities, and brief departments proactively.
2
Draft a defensible AI-use policy for the legal office and the city.
Copy-paste this prompt
Draft an AI-use policy for a city attorney's office: what tools are approved for what work, an absolute rule against entering privileged/confidential/closed-session material into non-secure tools, mandatory citation verification, records-retention and public-records implications of AI chats, and a review process for AI-assisted work product. Reference the professional-responsibility duties (competence, confidentiality, supervision) it should reflect.
Adapt to your jurisdiction's bar rules and public-records law; have it reviewed before adoption.
3
Own the office's AI standards and training — governing the tool safely is a leadership credential.
What you'll haveA city kept ahead of legal change with safe, governed AI — the modernizer's reputation that leads to the top of the office.
Your 12-month sequence to the top of the range
How the plays above stack into a path from median pay toward the $414,290 tier.
Month 1
Run one research memo through Lexis+ AI or Westlaw CoCounsel; verify every citation and compare the time to your usual process.
Months 2-3
Adopt AI drafting for ordinances, contracts, and staff reports, reconciling each against your municipal code.
Months 3-6
Stand up an AI-assisted public-records and discovery review workflow with human-verified redaction logs.
Months 6-12
Lead your office's AI-use policy and legal-change monitoring — the modernizer role that leads to chief counsel.
What City Attorneys earn by state
These are the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own figures for Lawyers, state by state — not a cost-of-living adjustment applied to the national number. Only states employing at least 500 people in the occupation are shown, because a state median drawn from a handful of workers is noise rather than a signal.
New York
$207,860
highest of them · +30% vs the national median
Mississippi
$91,690
lowest of the 51 states and D.C. that qualify · -43% vs the national median
The same job pays $116,170 more a year at the median in New York than in Mississippi — 127% higher. That gap is what the Bureau measured, before any question of what it costs to live in either place. The top-of-range figure quoted at the head of this page, $414,290, is a different statistic in a different place: it is the 90th-percentile wage in Nevada. The state that pays the typical worker most and the state where the best-paid go highest are not always the same one.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 23-1011. 51 states and D.C. clear the 500-employee reporting floor for this occupation; those below it are left out rather than shown with a wide error band.
Free data. Use any of it.
PayCrunch publishes verified, BLS-sourced salary + AI-playbook data on 1,000+ professions — free, no signup.
No. AI has no license, no judgment, and no accountability to a council or the public, and it cannot appear in court or give a legal opinion the city can rely on. It replaces the slow first drafts and document review. Attorneys who use it handle more, faster; those who don't get buried — but the legal judgment stays human.
What's the biggest risk of using AI as a lawyer?
Fabricated citations and confidentiality breaches. Consumer AI invents realistic-looking cases that don't exist — attorneys have been sanctioned for filing them — so verify every citation in Westlaw or Lexis. And never enter privileged or confidential material into non-secure tools; assume it could become discoverable or a public record.
Which AI tools are safe for municipal legal work?
Legal-grade platforms built for confidentiality and citations — Lexis+ AI, Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel, CoCounsel, Spellbook. Reserve general tools like ChatGPT or Claude for non-confidential, generic tasks, and keep all case-specific and privileged facts out of them.
How does AI actually increase a city attorney's pay?
By raising throughput and reliability. Faster research, drafting, and records review let you and a lean office handle more complex matters at a higher standard, which is what earns senior, supervising, and chief-counsel roles — the top of the municipal pay band.
Can I use AI for public-records requests?
Yes, carefully. AI review tools cluster, search, and speed first-pass redaction across huge record sets, but a lawyer must confirm every privilege and exemption call before release. The efficiency is real; the accountability for what's disclosed or withheld is entirely yours.
Methodology & sources
Salary (median, 10th, top of the range) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS.
By state — the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own state medians, limited to states employing at least 500 people in the occupation. No cost-of-living arithmetic is applied to a wage anywhere on this page.
The plays — PayCrunch's own step-by-step guidance using publicly available AI tools. Tool names/URLs are real and current as of August 2026; prompts written to work as-is. Verify any professional output before relying on it.