Medical chronology: what an unanswered question costs
A chronology of medical records for proceedings, where the client has required the records to stay in Australia. Neither AI configuration can show that they do, so both are held at governance 2 and neither may be used for this task yet. The firm works by hand and writes down what it is waiting for.
A constructed case, from a master’s research project.
The firm and the matter are constructed for a master’s research project. They are not a real engagement, and no client information, personal data or participant was involved.
The products are real and named. The three scores are the researcher’s analytical judgements, recorded in that research. The governance score rests on each supplier’s public documents, captured 21 September 2026 and re-audited 4 October 2026; the adoption and efficiency scores are judged against stated anchors from the task and the research literature, not from supplier documents. They are one assessor’s judgements, not a rating anyone has agreed to.
No product was run for this page. There is no trial, no result, no timing and no record of use anywhere on it.
Nothing here is legal advice or a product recommendation. A firm must make its own assessment, against its own evidence, for its own task, and reapply it at least yearly, because products and terms change.
The scores, the decisions and the confirmation statuses are that research’s own, and the conditions and the work still required are given in its words where it states them. The decision and the ranking are computed as the page loads, by the same code the product itself uses, so neither can show an outcome that rule would not reach. The stage levels are computed too, from the level rule as the research states it, by a module written for these pages rather than by the working record, which does not yet set a level for each stage. Where a computed decision or a computed level differs from the one the research recorded, both are shown and the difference is named. Nothing the research does not record is attributed to it: where it is silent, this page says so.
Evidence: Supplier pages, court rules, legislation and regulator guidance, read as documents and given a confirmation status. Captured 21 September 2026, re-audited 4 October 2026. Of 35 answers across five products, three were Confirmed, 28 were Public claim only and four Not confirmed. A confirmed component of an otherwise incomplete answer counts as Public claim only. The three complete confirmations concern two default no-training commitments and one certificate’s scope; no supplier confirmed storage, processing location, retention during use or model choice.
Step 1 Define the task
Say exactly what you are producing, for whom, and what it has to be right about.
Medical chronology
The task
A recurring litigation task: a chronology of medical records for proceedings.
The premise and forum
Storage and processing in Australia, on the client’s instruction; the Supreme Court of Victoria.
The material
Identifiable medical records.
What is examined
Omissions: an event that never reaches the chronology leaves nothing in the draft to check.
The candidates
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant; Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5); Manual chronology.
The case is constructed: the medical records in it are a premise of the scenario and not records of anyone, and no participant, client information or personal data was involved in assessing it. Every option below, including doing the work by hand, is judged against this one description.
Step 2 Assess and decide
Three separate questions, asked of each option and never added up. The scores are the researcher’s recorded judgements; the decision beneath each set is computed from them as this page loads.
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant
Held back until confirmed
A document-system assistant. The records already sit in its repository with their permissions.
Adoption
4 of 5
1Access, information or reviewer absent.
2Preparation dominates, or comprehension depends on one person.
3Feasible within existing resources, with manageable setup.
4Good fit; changes announced or detectable, and reassessment assigned.
5Strong fit and sustained capability, with negligible added burden.Doing it by hand sits here
NetDocuments scored 4 for adoption, since the records already sit in its repository with their permissions.
What this judgement rests on — these inform it, they do not add up to it
1Minimum quality unreachable, or checking impossible.
2Forecast: more total work than the manual route without a matching quality gain.
3Reference point: quality and total work comparable with careful manual work.Doing it by hand sits here
4Forecast: a task-relevant advantage that survives all required checking.
5A strong advantage after all required work, shown by an observed result.
It scored 3 for efficiency at low confidence: entries link to their source, although accuracy falls on longer texts even for large commercial models.
What this judgement rests on — these inform it, they do not add up to it
Task-level capability evidenceE1
Quality against careful manual workE2
Checkable for support and omissionsE3
Total human workE4
Study against practice evidenceE5
Repeatability and cost of variationE6
Governance
2 of 5
1A mandatory condition confirmed to fail, or stated by the supplier to be impossible.
2An applicable mandatory AI-specific answer is Not confirmed.
3Applicable mandatory conditions met, with at least one answer Public claim only.
4Controls cover the task; applicable mandatory answers Confirmed, or none applies.Doing it by hand sits here
5Prevention, detection, response and recovery integrated with existing frameworks, including a supplier commitment to notify incidents.
Your evidence caps this at 2 of 5. The client requires the records to stay in Australia. NetDocuments publishes an Australian storage option without stating where requests are processed, so the inference-location condition is Not confirmed, and an applicable mandatory AI-specific answer that is Not confirmed caps governance at 2. Governance 1 would need the condition confirmed to fail, or stated by the supplier to be impossible, which is not what the evidence shows. A higher opinion does not lift a ceiling; a document does.
NetDocuments publishes an Australian storage option without stating where requests are processed.
What sets the limit — the weakest one decides
Security management and scopeG1
Privacy and cross-border handlingG2
Encryption, access control, supplier chainG3
Retention, deletion, incident responseG4
Training reuseG5
Storage locationG6
Inference locationG7
Confirmation status of G5 to G7G8
Connection to existing frameworksG9
Task-specific required controlsG10
Three separate answers. They are never averaged. The overall rating is the lowest of the three, and it cannot be higher than due diligence, so a strong answer cannot hide a weak one.
Decision, computed here from the three scoresDo not use for this task until confirmed
Decision recorded in the researchDo not use for this task until confirmedThe same answer.
Governance suitability is 2 / 5: An applicable mandatory AI-specific answer is Not confirmed.
Because a mandatory answer is outstanding, four things get recorded
The question
Are the records both stored and processed in Australia for this tenancy?
The document that would answer it
A binding document, such as the order form.
Who asks
The firm, of the supplier.
What the firm does meanwhile
The manual chronology, which is the route the rule selects.
“The firm asks each supplier to confirm Australian storage and processing in a binding document, such as the order form, and works manually meanwhile.”
The supplier evidence behind the governance score
Default prohibition on training with customer contentPublic claim only
Storage location and Australian optionPublic claim only
Model-processing locationNot confirmed
Retention during usePublic claim only
Human access and service-provider safeguardsPublic claim only
Standards certification or audit evidencePublic claim only
Customer model choicePublic claim only, no choice
Public documents captured 21 September 2026, re-audited 4 October 2026. Confirmed means published binding terms or scoped independent evidence for the exact answer, not the firm’s own signed agreement. Public claim only means the supplier states it, or a binding answer is incomplete. Not confirmed means no answer for the assessed configuration.
The work still required
Obtain the binding confirmation of Australian storage and processing, and work manually meanwhile.
Even if confirmed, neither AI option would overtake manual work.
Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5)
Held back until confirmed
A general-purpose model, Claude Opus 5. The lawyer would have to prepare every document by hand.
Adoption
3 of 5
1Access, information or reviewer absent.
2Preparation dominates, or comprehension depends on one person.
3Feasible within existing resources, with manageable setup.
4Good fit; changes announced or detectable, and reassessment assigned.
5Strong fit and sustained capability, with negligible added burden.Doing it by hand sits here
Claude Enterprise scored 3 for adoption, its limit being information and integration readiness: the lawyer would have to prepare every document by hand.
What this judgement rests on — these inform it, they do not add up to it
1Minimum quality unreachable, or checking impossible.
2Forecast: more total work than the manual route without a matching quality gain.
3Reference point: quality and total work comparable with careful manual work.Doing it by hand sits here
4Forecast: a task-relevant advantage that survives all required checking.
5A strong advantage after all required work, shown by an observed result.
It scored 2 for efficiency, since the lawyer would have to prepare every document by hand.
What this judgement rests on — these inform it, they do not add up to it
Task-level capability evidenceE1
Quality against careful manual workE2
Checkable for support and omissionsE3
Total human workE4
Study against practice evidenceE5
Repeatability and cost of variationE6
Governance
2 of 5
1A mandatory condition confirmed to fail, or stated by the supplier to be impossible.
2An applicable mandatory AI-specific answer is Not confirmed.
3Applicable mandatory conditions met, with at least one answer Public claim only.
4Controls cover the task; applicable mandatory answers Confirmed, or none applies.Doing it by hand sits here
5Prevention, detection, response and recovery integrated with existing frameworks, including a supplier commitment to notify incidents.
Your evidence caps this at 2 of 5. The help page describes the supplier’s default. It is not a binding term, and it does not say that an Enterprise agreement cannot keep the data in Australia, so the Australia-only condition is Not confirmed — not confirmed to fail, and not stated by the supplier to be impossible, either of which would give governance 1. Not confirmed caps governance at 2. The research grades the answer to the storage question itself as a public claim naming the United States: the condition this task raises is a different thing from the answer to that question. A higher opinion does not lift a ceiling; a document does.
The supplier’s help page states that “data is stored in the US” and names no Australian storage option. It describes the default, is not a binding term and does not say that an Enterprise agreement cannot keep data in Australia: Not confirmed.
What sets the limit — the weakest one decides
Security management and scopeG1
Privacy and cross-border handlingG2
Encryption, access control, supplier chainG3
Retention, deletion, incident responseG4
Training reuseG5
Storage locationG6
Inference locationG7
Confirmation status of G5 to G7G8
Connection to existing frameworksG9
Task-specific required controlsG10
Three separate answers. They are never averaged. The overall rating is the lowest of the three, and it cannot be higher than due diligence, so a strong answer cannot hide a weak one.
Decision, computed here from the three scoresDo not use for this task until confirmed
Decision recorded in the researchDo not use for this task until confirmedThe same answer.
Governance suitability is 2 / 5: An applicable mandatory AI-specific answer is Not confirmed.
Efficiency likelihood is 2 / 5 and no recorded condition removes the cause.
Because a mandatory answer is outstanding, four things get recorded
The question
Can this client’s medical records be stored and processed only in Australia?
The document that would answer it
A binding document, such as the order form.
Who asks
The firm, of the supplier.
What the firm does meanwhile
The manual chronology, which is the route the rule selects.
“The firm asks each supplier to confirm Australian storage and processing in a binding document, such as the order form, and works manually meanwhile.”
The supplier evidence behind the governance score
Default prohibition on training with customer contentConfirmed
Storage location and Australian optionPublic claim only, United States
Model-processing locationPublic claim only
Retention during usePublic claim only
Human access and service-provider safeguardsPublic claim only, one component confirmed
Standards certification or audit evidencePublic claim only
Customer model choicePublic claim only, user chooses
Public documents captured 21 September 2026, re-audited 4 October 2026. Confirmed means published binding terms or scoped independent evidence for the exact answer, not the firm’s own signed agreement. Public claim only means the supplier states it, or a binding answer is incomplete. Not confirmed means no answer for the assessed configuration.
The work still required
Obtain the binding confirmation of Australian storage and processing, and work manually meanwhile.
Its efficiency of 2 would stop its use even if confirmed, so the research records no human-in-the-loop plan for it.
Manual chronology
Selected
The chronology prepared without AI: the task’s reference point, and here the route the rule selects.
Adoption
5 of 5
1Access, information or reviewer absent.
2Preparation dominates, or comprehension depends on one person.
3Feasible within existing resources, with manageable setup.
4Good fit; changes announced or detectable, and reassessment assigned.
5Strong fit and sustained capability, with negligible added burden.Doing it by hand sits here
The manual route scores 5 for adoption, since the firm already works this way.
What this judgement rests on — these inform it, they do not add up to it
1Minimum quality unreachable, or checking impossible.
2Forecast: more total work than the manual route without a matching quality gain.
3Reference point: quality and total work comparable with careful manual work.Doing it by hand sits here
4Forecast: a task-relevant advantage that survives all required checking.
5A strong advantage after all required work, shown by an observed result.
It scores 3 for efficiency, the reference point for every tool.
What this judgement rests on — these inform it, they do not add up to it
Task-level capability evidenceE1
Quality against careful manual workE2
Checkable for support and omissionsE3
Total human workE4
Study against practice evidenceE5
Repeatability and cost of variationE6
Governance
4 of 5
1A mandatory condition confirmed to fail, or stated by the supplier to be impossible.
2An applicable mandatory AI-specific answer is Not confirmed.
3Applicable mandatory conditions met, with at least one answer Public claim only.
4Controls cover the task; applicable mandatory answers Confirmed, or none applies.Doing it by hand sits here
5Prevention, detection, response and recovery integrated with existing frameworks, including a supplier commitment to notify incidents.
No mandatory AI-specific condition applies to it, and its safeguards cover the task.
What sets the limit — the weakest one decides
Security management and scopeG1
Privacy and cross-border handlingG2
Encryption, access control, supplier chainG3
Retention, deletion, incident responseG4
Training reuseG5
Storage locationG6
Inference locationG7
Confirmation status of G5 to G7G8
Connection to existing frameworksG9
Task-specific required controlsG10
Three separate answers. They are never averaged. The overall rating is the lowest of the three, and it cannot be higher than due diligence, so a strong answer cannot hide a weak one.
Decision, computed here from the three scoresUse
Decision recorded in the researchUseThe same answer.
The work still required
Enter and reconcile the events, check for omissions against the records, and have a named person approve the exact output.
One of the omissions the case examines sits in the manual chronology, so manual work needs the same checks.
Step 2b Choosing between what is permitted
Governance is the minimum: on legal and security grounds, it alone restricts use or attaches conditions to it.
Order
Option
Adoption
Efficiency
Governance
Decision, computed
01
Manual chronologyPreferred today
5
3
4
Use
—
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant
4
3
2
Do not use for this task until confirmed
—
Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5)
3
2
2
Do not use for this task until confirmed
Only one option is permitted today, so the ranking decides nothing here. Options that are not permitted are listed, never ranked: they stay in the comparison so that the firm can see what was considered and what it is waiting for.
What changes if the confirmation arrives
A confirmed condition sets no ceiling, and the firm’s own judgement then sets the governance score. The research records no score for the confirmed case, so none is invented here: instead the page re-ranks at every governance score the rule would permit — 3, 4 and 5 — and shows that the answer is the same in all three.
Governance 3 (a public claim, still conditional)
Manual chronology — Use
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant — Use with conditions
Still not ranked: Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5) — Do not use for this task.
Governance 4 (controls cover the task)
Manual chronology — Use
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant — Use with conditions
Still not ranked: Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5) — Do not use for this task.
Governance 5 (integrated with existing frameworks)
Manual chronology — Use
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant — Use with conditions
Still not ranked: Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5) — Do not use for this task.
The ranking never reads governance: it asks efficiency, then adoption. So the confirmation changes the decisions and changes nothing about the order — as the research puts it, even if confirmed, neither would overtake manual work. Claude Enterprise does not become usable either: with governance no longer the bar, its efficiency of 2 is, and nothing recorded removes the cause.
Step 3 Plan the human work
Being permitted says nothing about how much of the work a tool may do. That is the level, and it is set stage by stage by the rule, from the facts of the task rather than from the product.
Manual chronology
The manual route has no level to choose: the rule gives it Manual (no AI) at every stage. It is the reference point every tool is compared against, and here it is the route the rule selects.
Stage
Level
What the rule read
What that stage then requires
Frame the task, choose sources
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.This stage asks the same thing at every level, so the level cannot buy anything here.
Lawyer
Produce the first draft
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.
Lawyer or staff
Check high-risk points against the documents (such as dates, figures, key advice)
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.
Each one
Check the rest, including omissions
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.
Every statement relied on; every document read
Judge law, authority, jurisdiction and materiality
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.This stage asks the same thing at every level, so the level cannot buy anything here.
Lawyer
Approve the exact output
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.
Named person
Release (send, file, sign)
Manual (no AI)
The manual route: no AI at any stage.This stage asks the same thing at every level, so the level cannot buy anything here.
Human
The headline level is Manual (no AI), taken from the first-draft stage, and every stage that differs from it is marked. This plan uses 1 of the four levels.
NetDocuments ndMAX, Australian tenant
This plan is what the level rule gives if the confirmation arrives. It is recorded for the option that is not yet permitted, so that the firm knows what using it would require.
Plan
Set by rule, if confirmed
Recorded at green
none
Recorded at yellow
draft entries with source links
Recorded at red
interpret conflicts; materiality
Stage
Level
What the rule read
What that stage then requires
Frame the task, choose sources
RedDiffers from the headline level
The lawyer’s own judgement: framing, weighing authority, deciding materiality or accepting a departure.This stage asks the same thing at every level, so the level cannot buy anything here.
Lawyer
Produce the first draft
Yellow
Substantive work leaving the firm is at least yellow.A chronology of medical records for proceedings is substantive work that leaves the firm.
AI and lawyer, lawyer directing
Check high-risk points against the documents (such as dates, figures, key advice)
Yellow
Substantive work leaving the firm is at least yellow.Dates are the chronology’s high-risk points, and each one is checked against the record behind it at every level.
Each one
Check the rest, including omissions
Yellow
Substantive work leaving the firm is at least yellow.The failure this case examines is omission, which leaves nothing in the draft to check.
Every statement relied on; every document read
Judge law, authority, jurisdiction and materiality
RedDiffers from the headline level
The lawyer’s own judgement: framing, weighing authority, deciding materiality or accepting a departure.This stage asks the same thing at every level, so the level cannot buy anything here.
Lawyer
Approve the exact output
Yellow
Substantive work leaving the firm is at least yellow.The output leaves the firm, so the approver is not the drafter.
Named person, not the drafter
Release (send, file, sign)
Yellow
Substantive work leaving the firm is at least yellow.What is filed or served is the output that leaves the firm.This stage asks the same thing at every level, so the level cannot buy anything here.
Human
The headline level is Yellow, taken from the first-draft stage, and every stage that differs from it is marked. This plan uses 2 of the four levels.
The recorded level, set beside the computed one
Produce the first draft: the research records Yellow, the rule computes YellowYellow
A match is not independent support, and nothing here treats it as any. The facts the rule reads were taken from the same description of the task the research worked from, so the two are not independent of each other; and where the research marks a plan “Set by rule”, the level it recorded is this same rule’s output, so a match there would only repeat it. The research itself reports the rule reproducing its written levels as consistency, not validity. Only the first-draft stage is compared, because that is the one stage the research states a level for in its own words.
Read instead as internal work, the rule gives Yellow as well. The research records no validated template for it, so the rule’s last branch gives the same level.
Claude Enterprise (Claude Opus 5): The research records no plan for this configuration, since its efficiency of 2 would stop its use even if confirmed.
Steps 4 & 5 What the plan requires on every matter
These are the requirements the framework attaches to a matter that uses a permitted option. They are obligations, not events.
A person with the documents makes the plan’s checks, above all at the high-risk points: dates, figures, key advice.
Approval is refused unless no client commitment excludes this use, and unless the level and the reason for it are recorded.
At yellow and red the checks are counted and the approver is not the drafter; in a sole practice, counted checks suffice.
At red the lawyer confirms writing the output.
A named, competent approver approves this version, for its stated use, and a supervising lawyer approves a junior’s work.
Release — sending, filing or signing — is a separate human act.
The record keeps who drafted, who checked what, how many items and for how long, what changed and who approved, with the tool, the model, the date and any required AI-use statement.
At least yearly, and on a change of model, subprocessor, terms, tool function, template, task, law, guidance or reviewer, the assessment goes back to the start and the earlier checks lapse.
Nothing on this page is a record of use.
The list above is what the plan would require on a matter. No product was run for this page: no document was read by one, nothing was checked, nothing was corrected and nothing was timed. The research traced its plans through the constructed cases and reports that a planned check would catch each defect written into them; it does not report that a lawyer found one, and neither does this page. The plans are not costed in hours.
Reading this back
An unconfirmed condition caps governance at 2, and the rule answers “do not use for this task until confirmed” rather than guessing.
Two limits travel with every number on this page. The scores are one assessor’s judgements, formed from public supplier documents captured 21 September 2026, re-audited 4 October 2026; a firm holds different evidence, and the supplier’s own signed agreement is better evidence than any of it. And an assessment holds only at the date of its evidence: products, plans, models and terms change, which is why the framework sends a task back to the start at least yearly.
Nothing here is advice, a recommendation or a rating any supplier has agreed to. A firm applying the framework to this task would reach its own three scores, and may well reach different ones.
