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 don't know." She uses Claude that evening anyway, at home, on her own account.
Which AI tools a lawyer may use is set out neither in the professional rules nor on the tool itself. It is for the firm to decide. A firm that does not take that decision is not being strict; it is leaving every supervising partner to work it out alone, and the work drifts to personal accounts.
Why is the answer not in the professional rules?
Because the professional rules are about core values, not products. A lawyer must be independent, partisan, competent and honest, and must keep client matters confidential; the dean of the local bar (the deken) oversees compliance with these core values. The Netherlands Bar has published recommendations on AI in the legal profession structured around 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 do not name a single tool as allowed or not allowed.
That is not a gap in the recommendations; it is the only way they can be right. 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 set out the core values; the firm has to apply them tool by tool. Our article on which AI tools employees may use explains how that works for organisations outside the legal profession; a firm adds the duty of confidentiality as the weightiest condition.
What does a firm's list look like?
Each tool gets a status, and four are enough: allowed, limited use, no decision yet, not allowed. Our article on the four statuses for AI tools explains what they mean. "Limited use" comes with a condition and "Not allowed" with an alternative; a free account and a business account for the same tool are two separate rows. This is how it might look at a mid-sized firm; the decisions are only examples, because your firm will decide differently.
| Tool | Status | Condition or alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Legal research database on the firm's licence | Allowed | None; client information permitted, within the agreement with the vendor |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot on a work account | Allowed | Only in matters you have permissions for yourself; nothing from matters behind an ethical wall |
| 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, with participants informed; 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 belong in a PDF. A lawyer opening a tool at a quarter past ten is not going to read a policy document; the decision should appear as soon as the tool opens, with the condition attached and the alternative as the first button. This is what it looks like when the list is at the point of use rather than in a document:
