A trainee asks her supervising partner whether she may use Claude to organise the structure of a pleading. He thinks for a moment. "The research database is fine, we have a licence for that. The rest, honestly, I do not know." She uses Claude that evening anyway, at home, on her own account.
Which AI tools a lawyer may use is not in the professional rules and not on the tool. It is a decision of the firm. A firm that does not take that decision is not a strict firm; it is a firm where every supervising partner works it out alone, and where the work drifts to private accounts.
Why is the answer not in the professional rules?
Because the professional rules are about core values, not products. A lawyer is independent, partisan, competent, honest and confidential, and the dean supervises those core values. The Netherlands Bar has published recommendations on AI in the legal profession organised along the same core values. They say how to assess a tool: know and control the data flows, put no confidential data into free tools, check what the tool produces, stay responsible for the advice yourself. They name no tool that is allowed and no tool that is not.
That is not a gap in the recommendations; it is the only way they can be correct. The same chatbot on a free account is something different from the same chatbot on a business licence with a processing agreement, and a contract analysis tool connected to the case management system is something different from the same tool without that connection. The bar can give the core values; the firm has to apply them per tool. How that works for organisations outside the legal profession is in which AI tools may employees use; for a firm, the duty of confidentiality is added as the heaviest condition.
What does a firm's list look like?
Per tool a status, and four are enough: allowed, limited use, no decision yet, not allowed. What they mean is in four statuses for AI tools. Limited use comes with the condition, not allowed with the alternative, and a free and a business account of the same tool are two rows. This is what it might look like at a mid-sized firm; the decisions are examples, because your firm will decide differently.
| Tool | Status | Condition or alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Legal research database on the firm's licence | Allowed | None; case information permitted, within the agreement with the vendor |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot on a work account | Allowed | Only in matters you hold permissions on yourself; nothing from walled-off matters |
| ChatGPT or Claude through the firm's business account | Limited use | No party names, case numbers, amounts or documents; abstract legal questions and your own text without client data are fine |
| ChatGPT or Claude through a free or personal account | Not allowed | Alternative: the firm's business account |
| Transcription tool for meetings | Limited use | Internal meetings only, participants know; no client meetings |
| Contract analysis tool first seen this month | No decision yet | Public information only for now; assessment under way |
The list does not live in a PDF. A lawyer opening a tool at a quarter past ten does not read a protocol; the decision should appear the moment the tool opens, with the condition attached and the alternative as the first button. This is what that looks like when the list sits at the point of use instead of in a document:
