Interview Notes to Neutral Memo and Follow-Ups: A Four-Prompt Chain in Claude

What This Builds

An interview ends and the real work starts: a memo that records what was said without adding a word, a check of each statement against the records you hold, follow-up questions and a short list for your supervisor. Done by hand, that is hours per interview. This chain splits it into four prompts in one Claude conversation, with a checkpoint after each one where you compare the output with your own notes before going on.

The chain drafts and organizes. It does not decide what a statement means, whether anyone is credible, whether a case moves forward or what happens next. Your original notes stay the record, and your supervisor and legal counsel make the judgment calls.

Prerequisites

• A Claude account your employer has approved for this kind of material: Pro ($20/month), or the free plan if the employer approves it. Total ongoing cost of the finished build: the plan you already use, with no other subscription needed.
• Your employer's AI policy read. Whether interview notes may go into an AI tool at all depends on that policy and on an approved tool. Ask before you paste real notes.
• Your own written notes from the interview, in your own words. This chain does not work from recordings or transcripts. Whether and how an interview may be recorded or transcribed is a matter for your unit's interview and recording policy and for counsel, and this guide does not cover it.
• Your unit's interview memo format, if it has one. Prompt 1 uses a plain layout you can change to match it.

The Concept

Think of a careful court clerk who reads back what was said. A clerk does not add, improve or interpret. The chain asks Claude to play that role in four passes. The first pass lays your notes into a memo. The second lists which record would support or contradict each statement. The third drafts open questions for the gaps. The fourth lists items for your supervisor.

Each pass starts from the last one, and any error you let through travels forward. That is why every prompt is followed by a checkpoint. The chain only works when you check each output against your notes before you send the next prompt.

Protecting the Case Material

The workflow runs on coded notes. Replace every name with a code ("Witness B", "Approver D", "Vendor V-12"), and replace every account, claim and policy number, amount, address, phone number and date of birth with a code or a placeholder. If you are not sure your employer allows the tool, run the chain on an invented interview instead, such as the one below, and apply it to real notes only after you have an answer.

Check the data settings of the Claude plan you use. Look at whether chats are used to train models and how long they are kept, because those settings differ between plan types and can change. Keep the key that matches codes to people in your case file and never in the conversation.

The invented interview below is the whole input for the worked example. Nothing in it is real.

Build It Step by Step

Part 1: Prepare the Coded Notes

Write or edit your notes so they read as short, separate statements. Mark each one with a letter so you can refer to it. Use a code for yourself too, such as Examiner 1. The invented notes used in this guide are these.

Interview of Witness B, accounts payable clerk at Company X
Date: 2026-03-20 (invented)
Present: Examiner 1, Examiner 2
Documents shown: A-3 (approval log), C-9 (vendor change request), P-14 (payment batch)

(a) Witness B stated that vendor bank detail changes arrive by email and that Witness B enters them after calling the vendor at the number on file.
(b) Witness B stated that the change for Vendor V-12 on 2026-03-02 was entered without a call because the request was marked urgent.
(c) Witness B stated that Approver D approves vendor changes the same day.
(d) Witness B did not recall payment batch P-14.
(e) Witness B said "I thought the email came from V-12's usual contact."

Open a new Claude conversation and keep the whole chain in it, so each prompt can see the earlier outputs. Do not turn on any setting that shares the conversation outside your approved workspace.

Part 2: Prompt 1, the Neutral Memo Draft

Paste this into the conversation and put your coded notes where the bracket is.

You are drafting an interview memo from the notes below. Use this layout: Header, Attendees, Documents shown, Statements, Follow-up.

Rules:
1. Use only what the notes say. Add no fact, no explanation and no inference.
2. Attribute every statement to the person who made it, for example "Witness B stated that".
3. Copy anything inside quotation marks exactly, character for character.
4. Describe what was said in neutral words. Do not characterize the person or the statement.
5. Where the notes do not give an item the layout asks for, write "not stated".
6. Number the statements in the order of the notes and keep the letters from the notes in brackets.

Notes:
[paste your coded notes here]

An output you might see (yours will differ in wording):

HEADER
Interview of Witness B, accounts payable clerk, Company X. Date: 2026-03-20. Location: not stated. Case reference: not stated.

ATTENDEES
Witness B, Examiner 1 and Examiner 2.

DOCUMENTS SHOWN
A-3 (approval log), C-9 (vendor change request) and P-14 (payment batch).

STATEMENTS
1. [a] Witness B stated that vendor bank detail changes arrive by email and that Witness B enters them after calling the vendor at the number on file.
2. [b] Witness B stated that the change for Vendor V-12 on 2026-03-02 was entered without a call because the request was marked urgent.
3. [c] Witness B stated that Approver D approves vendor changes the same day.
4. [d] Witness B did not recall payment batch P-14.
5. [e] Witness B said "I thought the email came from V-12's usual contact."

FOLLOW-UP
Not stated.

Checkpoint 1. Compare every line with your notes. Confirm that each statement keeps its meaning, that the quotation matches character for character, that no word was added and that nothing appears in "Documents shown" that your notes do not list. Look for softening or sharpening words, such as "admitted" for "stated" or "only" and "just" that were not in your notes. Fix any difference by telling Claude exactly what to change, or edit the draft yourself. Do not move on with a draft you have not checked. The memo is still a draft in your working notes until you verify every line.

Part 3: Prompt 2, Statements and the Documents That Would Support or Contradict Them

Using only the memo you just drafted, build a table with three columns: Statement, Document that would support or contradict it, Held. For each numbered statement:
- In the second column, name the kind of document that would show whether the statement matches the records.
- In the third column, write the document code if the memo's Documents shown list contains a matching code. Otherwise write "none held".
Use only the codes in the memo. Do not invent a code. Do not say whether any document does support or contradict a statement, because you have not seen the documents.

An output you might see:

| Statement | Document that would support or contradict it | Held |
|-----------|-----------------------------------------------|------|
| 1 [a] | Written procedures for vendor bank detail changes | none held |
| 2 [b] | Vendor change request and system change log for the change | C-9, and system change log: none held |
| 3 [c] | Approval log | A-3 |
| 4 [d] | Payment batch | P-14 |
| 5 [e] | The email itself | none held |

Checkpoint 2. Confirm the table against your case file. Check each "Held" entry: is that document actually in your file, and is it the version you mean? Check each "none held" entry the other way: does your file have something Claude could not know about? Then check that no row says a document does or does not match a statement. That judgment is yours, made by reading the document. If a row names a document that does not exist in your file, remove it.

Part 4: Prompt 3, Open Follow-Up Questions and Document Requests

For the statements marked "none held" in the table, draft:
1. Open, non-leading follow-up questions for Witness B. Each question must be answerable in Witness B's own words and must not suggest an answer, assume a fact not in the memo, or contain a characterization of anyone.
2. A document request for each missing document, naming the document in general terms and the holder only if the memo names one.
Use only facts in the memo. Do not rank the questions and do not say which answers would matter.

An output you might see:

STATEMENT 1 [a]
Questions: Can you walk through how a vendor bank detail change reaches you and what you do from that point?
Document request: Written procedures for vendor bank detail changes.

STATEMENT 2 [b]
Questions: What happened with the change for Vendor V-12 on 2026-03-02, from the point it reached you? How are requests marked urgent, and by whom?
Document request: System change log entries for Vendor V-12 on 2026-03-02.

STATEMENT 5 [e]
Questions: What did you see in the email when it arrived? What led you to your understanding of who sent it?
Document request: The email, in its original form.

Checkpoint 3. Read each question as the interviewee would. Remove anything that suggests an answer, assumes something the memo does not say or implies a view about the person. Then remove or change anything your unit's interview policy does not allow, and anything your supervisor or counsel has asked you to handle differently. Claude does not know your unit's interview rules and states none. A follow-up interview, its timing and its format are decisions for your supervisor under your unit's procedures.

Part 5: Prompt 4, Items for Your Supervisor

Make a short list for my supervisor under three headings: Open items, Documents to request, Next interviews to consider. Use only items from the memo, the table and the follow-up list. For next interviews, list only people or roles that the memo names. Write each item as a plain description. Do not include any view about guilt, intent, honesty or credibility, and do not recommend referral, closure or any action against a person.

An output you might see:

OPEN ITEMS
- Witness B's description of the vendor change process (statement 1) is not yet matched to written procedures.
- The change for Vendor V-12 on 2026-03-02 (statement 2) is not yet matched to a system change log.
- The email referred to in statement 5 is not yet held.

DOCUMENTS TO REQUEST
- Written procedures for vendor bank detail changes.
- System change log entries for Vendor V-12 on 2026-03-02.
- The email, in its original form.

NEXT INTERVIEWS TO CONSIDER
- Approver D (named in statement 3).

Checkpoint 4. Read the list for anything beyond the notes. Confirm that every item traces to a line of the memo and that no item states or hints at a conclusion about a person. Then hand it to your supervisor as your own working list. The supervisor decides what to request, whom to interview and what happens next. Whether anything is referred or closed is decided by your supervisor, counsel and management.

Part 6: Close the Loop

Move the verified memo into your case file in your unit's format and keep your original notes as the record. Delete the draft chat if your unit's policy asks for that. If a line in the memo differs from your notes, the notes win. File the follow-up list and the supervisor list where your unit keeps working papers.

Real Example: One Invented Interview

Setup: one Claude conversation, the invented notes from Part 1 and the four prompts. Input: five coded statements, three coded documents shown and two attendees. Output: a five-statement memo with a "not stated" follow-up section, a five-row evidence table, follow-up questions for three statements and a three-heading list for the supervisor.

Working through the table in Prompt 2: statements 3 and 4 map to A-3 and P-14, which the notes say were shown, so the Held column carries those codes. Statements 1, 2 and 5 map to documents the notes do not list (written procedures, a system change log, the email), so they read "none held". Statement 2 also names C-9, which is listed, so its Held cell carries both a code and a "none held". Of the five rows, two carry a code only, one carries a code and a gap, and two carry a gap only.

Prompt 3 therefore covers statements 1, 2 and 5, which are the three rows with a "none held" entry, and the supervisor list in Prompt 4 carries three open items and three document requests.

Time saved: an estimated 30 minutes per interview for the chain, compared with building the memo, the evidence table and the question list by hand. Checking each output against your notes is part of that time and is not optional.

What to Do When It Breaks

• The memo adds something your notes do not say. Point to the line, say "that is not in the notes" and ask for the memo again with the rule repeated. Then re-check every line, because one addition often means others.
• A quotation changed. Replace it yourself with the exact text from your notes. Do not ask Claude to fix it, since a fix can change it again.
• The table names a document you do not hold. Delete the row's code and write "none held". Claude only knows the codes you gave it, and an invented code means the output drifted.
• Questions lead the witness. Rewrite them as open questions in your own words. If many questions lead, send Prompt 3 again with "Each question must begin with what, how or can you describe."
• The supervisor list drifts toward conclusions. Delete the line and send Prompt 4 again with its rule on guilt, intent, honesty, credibility, referral and closure repeated. A conclusion in an output is a sign to re-read the whole conversation.
• A long conversation starts to lose the early details. Start a new conversation with the checked memo pasted in, and run the remaining prompts from there. The checked memo, not Claude's recall, is the source.
• You cannot tell whether a line is right. Go back to your original notes and, for anything those cannot settle, to the case file. If a point still cannot be settled, leave it out of the chain's output.

Variations

• Simpler version: run only Prompts 1 and 2 and write the follow-ups yourself.
• Extended version: keep the four prompts in a Claude Project with your unit's memo layout stored as project knowledge, so you do not repaste the rules each time. Store the layout only, never case notes.
• Training version: run the invented interview above with a new examiner and have them find the differences between the draft and the notes at each checkpoint.

What to Do Next

• This week: run the chain on the invented interview and compare each output with the examples here. Then ask your supervisor about the policy for real notes.
• This month: adjust the Prompt 1 layout to match your unit's memo format and save the four prompts in a note of your own.
• Advanced: pair this with a document request digest so the requests from Prompt 3 land in a tracker that emails you when they are late.

Advanced guide for fraud examiners and financial investigators. Every output is a draft in your working notes until you verify each line against your original notes and the case file. Claude does not decide what a statement means, whether anyone is credible or what happens in a case. Your supervisor and legal counsel decide that. Claude's plans and screens change, so follow the labels you see.