Practice guide / Law firms
Keep the source behind the sentence.
A chronology, comparison, research note, or client draft is useful only if the lawyer can inspect its basis. Keep matter facts separate from legal authority, preserve contradictions and missing material, and decide who may use the output for which purpose. Faster drafting is a trial hypothesis; the review burden belongs in the result.
Two kinds of support
A fact needs a record. A legal proposition needs authority.
Start with a defined matter task and the evidence a reviewer needs. A sentence may describe an allegation, quote a document, summarize an authority, or propose a legal interpretation. Those are different claims. An assistant should expose the distinction and its source rather than blend them into one confident narrative.
- Recorded is not established
- An email can show what someone said without proving the statement is true. Keep allegations, instructions, disputed facts, and the lawyer's conclusions distinct.
- Cited is not applicable
- A real decision may concern another jurisdiction, procedural setting, or legal question. Resolving the citation is one check; assessing its current relevance is another.
- Protected is not presumed
- A confidentiality label or private interface does not decide legal privilege. The lawyer must assess the information, use, recipients, and applicable law before disclosure.
Four tasks to examine
Choose the work product, then test its weak points.
These are possible trial designs for approved material and qualified supervision. They do not assume that a particular tool is suitable or that any task is low risk in every matter.
Build a document-linked chronology
01Useful task: Help a lawyer locate events and conflicts in an approved matter record.
- Starting situation
- Dates and accounts are scattered across correspondence, documents, and attachments that staff must repeatedly reopen.
- Source basis
- Approved document set, stable identifiers, versions, page references, time-zone conventions, and explicit collection gaps.
- Assisted work
- Extract candidate events with exact passages and distinguish event dates from document dates. Keep competing accounts side by side and mark uncertain dates.
- Lawyer retains
- The lawyer decides what the record establishes, what is disputed, what further evidence is needed, and which events matter to the case.
- Review artifact
- An event table with document and passage links, attributed speakers, date basis, contradictions, and unresolved entries.
- Failure to test
- A forwarded message date replaces the underlying event date, an allegation becomes a fact, or an absent attachment disappears from the account.
- Trial measure
- Compare missed events, incorrect attribution, unresolved conflicts, and total time to a lawyer-accepted chronology.
Compare a contract against an approved position
02Useful task: Give the reviewer a traceable list of differences and questions.
- Starting situation
- A team needs to assess a new draft against a specified prior version or approved clause position.
- Source basis
- Exact draft versions, approved comparison basis, defined terms, schedules, cross-references, and relevant instructions.
- Assisted work
- Use an exact text comparison to establish changes. Let AI group candidate issues and suggest questions, with links to the affected clauses and dependencies.
- Lawyer retains
- The lawyer assesses interpretation, enforceability, commercial context, proposed wording, and negotiation advice; the client retains its decisions.
- Review artifact
- A clause comparison showing original wording, changed wording, linked definitions, the proposed issue, and the reviewer's disposition.
- Failure to test
- A clause appears unchanged but an amended definition changes its effect, or a missing schedule makes the suggested conclusion incomplete.
- Trial measure
- Compare material differences missed, unsupported issues raised, reviewer corrections, and time through accepted advice preparation.
Prepare a research issue map
03Useful task: Organize candidate authorities and unresolved questions for legal analysis.
- Starting situation
- A lawyer has a defined question but needs to examine several possible lines of authority and factual distinctions.
- Source basis
- Issue, material facts, jurisdiction, forum, relevant date, and an approved source plan with known coverage limits.
- Assisted work
- Find candidate sources and draft proposition-to-passage links. Preserve competing interpretations, adverse material, and gaps for independent checking.
- Lawyer retains
- The lawyer verifies authority, current treatment, relevance, weight, completeness, and the legal position to advance.
- Review artifact
- An issue map with resolved documents, exact passages, source dates, search limits, and separately marked analysis.
- Failure to test
- A genuine source does not support the stated proposition, a dissent is presented as the court's holding, or later treatment changes its use.
- Trial measure
- Compare unsupported propositions, missed relevant material, citation and passage errors, and total professional verification effort.
Draft a client explanation from an approved position
04Useful task: Prepare a readable draft without changing the substance of the lawyer's advice.
- Starting situation
- The responsible lawyer has settled the position and needs to explain options, qualifications, or next steps to a particular client.
- Source basis
- Approved advice points, supporting facts, unresolved questions, audience needs, and the intended communication scope.
- Assisted work
- Suggest structure and wording, link material claims to the approved brief, and make additions or altered qualifications visible.
- Lawyer retains
- The lawyer accepts the advice, tone, completeness, and release; client instructions and decisions remain explicit.
- Review artifact
- A marked draft showing the approved basis, changed wording, new assertions, and unresolved points before sending.
- Failure to test
- Plain-language rewriting removes a qualification, turns an option into a recommendation, or invents reassurance about the likely result.
- Trial measure
- Compare substantive corrections, omitted qualifications, clarification rounds, and total time to an approved communication.
Check the intended use
An internal draft does not carry its own release authority.
Use this as a technical acceptance design. It does not replace the professional rules, court directions, or client instructions that apply to the matter.
| Work product | Supporting record | Unresolved by the tool | Decision owner | Before use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internal chronology | Attributed events and exact passages | Truth, credibility and legal significance | Matter lawyer assesses the record | Disputed facts and gaps remain visible |
| Contract comparison | Versions, clauses and dependencies | Interpretation and acceptable position | Lawyer advises; client decides | Material changes and schedules checked |
| Research note | Authority documents and passages | Current weight and complete analysis | Qualified lawyer accepts the analysis | Citations, treatment and applicability checked |
| Client communication | Approved position and instructions | Advice or permission to send | Responsible lawyer approves release | Recipient, version and qualifications checked |
| Court submission | Verified facts, authorities and instructions | Candor, procedural compliance and filing | Authorized legal team controls submission | Applicable directions and all relied-on content reviewed |
| Document disclosure | Identified collection and reviewed decisions | Privilege, responsiveness and waiver | Responsible lawyers decide disclosure | Scope, exclusions and recipients approved |
Test one matter task
Measure the work through professional acceptance.
Keep the baseline and assisted trial comparable. A faster first draft may still create more checking, correction, or uncertainty for the lawyer responsible.
- 01
Name the task and owner
Define the work product, eligible matters, intended use, exclusions, responsible lawyer, and acceptance criteria before choosing a tool.
- 02
Approve the information path
Assess the actual product, contract, settings, access, retention, and onward processing. Resolve permissions and privilege questions with the responsible professionals before using matter material.
- 03
Specify the evidence tracks
Keep matter documents and legal authorities separately identifiable. Require passage references, versions, known gaps, and visible differences between source text and proposed analysis.
- 04
Seed difficult examples
Use suitable test material containing contradictory accounts, ambiguous dates, amended definitions, missing schedules, unsupported citations, and changed qualifications. Check what reviewers can detect.
- 05
Accept, narrow, or stop
Compare accepted work, material errors, review effort, later corrections, and unresolved cases. Record the lawyer's decision and repeat affected checks when the tool or workflow changes.
Practice decisions
Keep professional and technical questions connected.
ABA Opinion 512, the SRA's August 2026 warning, and BSB guidance address responsibility in different professional frameworks. Confirm the applicable rules locally. The implementation questions below are Werkon's proposed design checks.
- Respect matter access boundaries
- Apply permissions to documents, retrieval, outputs, and logs. Test cross-matter access and removal of access. Do not use a matter name in a prompt as the security control.
- Assess confidentiality and privilege separately
- Map who can receive or retain the information, including suppliers and support staff. A lawyer assesses permissible use and privilege implications; a product label or no-training setting cannot decide them.
- Make verification inspectable
- Let the reviewer open original passages, compare versions, and record corrections. A second generated answer is not independent source verification. Protect the review record under the matter's retention and access rules.
- Plan communication and release
- Establish client communication, consent where required, applicable court directions, and approval for the exact output. Keep time records and charging decisions tied to actual work and the applicable engagement requirements.
Before the first trial
Resolve the questions a demo cannot answer.
These questions frame a technical trial with the firm's lawyers and professional-responsibility owners. They do not determine the law for a particular matter.
- Does a paid legal AI tool preserve privilege?
- That cannot be concluded from its price or category. Assess the actual information flow, contractual terms, technical settings, recipients, and purpose. The responsible lawyer must determine the privilege and confidentiality implications under applicable law.
- Is a citation link enough to trust a research answer?
- No. Open the authority, verify the exact passage and context, and assess current treatment and relevance to the issue. A real citation can accompany an unsupported proposition. Preserve search gaps and contrary material for the lawyer.
- Can AI decide what is safe to disclose?
- An assistant may flag candidate documents or issues for review. It should not own privilege, waiver, responsiveness, or release decisions. Keep the collection scope, proposed exclusions, lawyer decisions, and exact released set attributable.
- Must every use be disclosed to the client or court?
- Requirements depend on the governing rules, instructions, tool use, and circumstances. ABA Opinion 512 discusses contextual communication duties; BSB guidance and court requirements have their own scope. Have the responsible lawyer establish what is required rather than adopting a universal yes or no.
- What makes a trial worth continuing?
- Useful accepted work with an understood error pattern and manageable review effort. Measure missed issues and later corrections alongside time. If staff cannot inspect the basis or the trial merely moves work into harder checking, narrow or stop it.
Source basis
Sources behind the control model.
- 01
American Bar Association
Formal Opinion 512: Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools29 July 2024 opinion under the ABA Model Rules. Informs the discussion of competence, verification, confidentiality, communication, supervision, and fees; confirm locally applicable rules.
- 02
Solicitors Regulation Authority
Misuse of AI: warning notice17 August 2026 notice for SRA-regulated firms and individuals. Addresses inaccurate content, confidentiality safeguards, supervision, and retained responsibility; not a universal privilege determination.
- 03
Bar Standards Board
Guidance on the use of Artificial Intelligence and Other TechnologiesGuidance valid from 18 May 2026 in the BSB's professional framework. Covers competence, adoption, management, point-of-use responsibilities, and work prepared by others.
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