The partners at a forty-lawyer firm ask their compliance officer for "the AI list". She opens the file she made last year: two rows, the legal research environment and Microsoft 365 Copilot. That same week an associate in the corporate team mentions he is trying out a contract analysis tool someone recommended at a conference, and it turns out that the family law team's dictation software has been producing summaries since an update.
An AI register for a law firm records, for each use case, which tool is used, for what, by which practice group, with what client and matter information and what the firm has decided about it. The fields are largely the same as for any organisation. Three of them carry more weight at a firm, and the list of tools that belong in it is longer than the two rows most firms start with.
Which AI tools are in use at a firm?
More than the research environment the firm licenses. Five kinds of AI show up at firms, and most registers name one or two.
The general chatbots: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Perplexity, often through a free or personal account. The AI features in the legal database, which for some years now have been summarising and drafting as well as searching. Dictation and transcription software that, after an update, suddenly summarises conversations. Specialised tools for contract analysis and due diligence, often connected to the document management system. And browser extensions that rewrite or translate pages and can read every open page, including the case management system. That reach is why browser extensions are AI tools too and belong in the register.
Some of this was never bought: a free chatbot never shows up on an invoice, an AI feature arrived with an update, an extension is installed in three clicks. A register built from purchasing records misses precisely those rows.
Which fields carry extra weight at a firm?
The basic fields are covered in our article on what an AI register is and what you record in it, along with a completed example. For a law firm, three fields carry extra weight, and two more are missing from most registers.
| Field | What you record | Why it carries more weight at a firm |
|---|---|---|
| Confidentiality | Which client and matter information the tool may see and which it may never see: nothing that identifies a client or matter, only anonymised documents, or full files | The duty of confidentiality and legal privilege sit with each lawyer and do not transfer to the vendor |
| Processing location and jurisdiction | Where processing takes place, where the vendor is established and which government can demand access to data | Confidential documents in a jurisdiction where privilege does not apply pose a different risk from processing in the EU |
| Agreement | A data processing agreement under the GDPR, plus the contractual terms on confidentiality, retention and sub-processors | A free account has neither; a business account has the first, and the second needs reading carefully |
| Connections | Whether the tool reads from the document management system, the mailbox or the database, and with whose permissions | A tool that reads case files itself has a different reach from a tool that only sees what someone pastes |
| Client terms | Whether clients have stipulated anything about AI in their terms or the engagement letter | Some clients rule out AI use on their matters; the register has to be able to show that |
Confidentiality is the most important field, and it is the one organisations outside the legal profession do not have. A data processing agreement governs what a vendor does with personal data under Article 28 GDPR. It does not govern the lawyer's duty to keep confidential what a client has entrusted to them. That duty stays with the lawyer even when the tool belongs to someone else, and it is the duty that the dean of the local bar (the deken, who supervises lawyers in each district) holds the lawyer to. So "processing agreement signed" is not a decision about client information. The decision is the sentence in the confidentiality field.
The Netherlands Bar has published recommendations on AI in the legal profession, structured around the profession's core values. Under confidentiality, the gist is that a lawyer knows and controls the data flows and puts no confidential data into free tools. The register is where that knowledge of data flows is written down: per tool, per use case, with a date.
What does a row look like?
Take the family law team's dictation software. Vendor: European, processing in Germany. Purpose: transcribing dictation and, since the update, summarising. Owner: the family law partner. Confidentiality: full dictation, so client and matter information, including special category data about children and health. Processing location: EU. Agreement: processing agreement signed, audio retained for thirty days, sub-processors named. Connections: none. Decision: allowed for dictation, limited use for summarising until the new feature has been assessed. Date and review date recorded.
Last year the same software was a single row with the status "Allowed". The update turned it into two use cases, and the second needs its own decision. That is why every row has a review date.
What is missing, and why does it lag behind?
After an afternoon's work, the forty-lawyer firm has seven rows. A first look at which AI services are being opened from the firm's browsers shows that, alongside the research environment and Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity are in use, as well as the contract analysis tool from the conference and a transcription tool someone uses for client meetings. Three of those appear nowhere in the register.
That is not an incident: nothing had been decided about those three. It shows what a survey is: a snapshot, taken by asking people who know which tools they use. Anyone who does not realise their dictation software is AI, or pays for a tool out of their own pocket, does not report it. Surveying more often does not fix that, as our article on why AI tool catalogues age explains.
The register needs a second source: which AI tools are actually being opened at the firm. Not by whom, not what is typed, only which tool and how often, at firm level. Every tool that shows up there but not in the register enters it with the most honest status there is: no decision yet. Those steps are set out in our article on moving from shadow AI to an up-to-date AI register.
BeeSensible supplies that second source: the extension reports only the domain of an opened AI tool, at most once a day per device, with no user ID and no page content, and matches it against a catalogue of over 1,000 assessed tools, each with vendor, country, processing agreement and training policy. An administrator sees in the Inbox which tools still have no decision and records the firm's decision; BeeSensible never takes that decision itself. The page about the AI register explains more about how that works.
