Practice area
In-House / General CounselIn-house / general counsel
Define the intended work in In-House / General Counsel, confirm the applicable requirements and select a task to plan the necessary review.
Key facts
- Tasks covered
- 22
- Tasks with a step-by-step checklist
- 4
- Local differences
- 3 jurisdictions where this area changes
Jurisdiction
Tasks
GreenLawyer reviewYellowClose supervisionRedLawyer-led
| Task | How AI is used | Human involvement | What the lawyer must review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Review an NDA, supply, SaaS or services contract against the playbook | Compare the paper to the organisation's playbook, flag missing liability, IP, data and termination protections, and propose mark-up. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Extract dates and obligations from a signed contract into a tracker | Pull renewal windows, notice periods, audit rights, price reviews and payment milestones into a table with clause references. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Build a regulatory-change table for the jurisdictions the business operates in | From the sources the lawyer has selected, list changes that appear to touch the business, with commencement dates and a note of what still needs a human read. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Build a regulatory-change table for ASIC, APRA, ACCC, OAIC and the ATO | From selected sources, list ASIC, APRA, ACCC, SafeWork Australia, ATO, OAIC and ASX changes touching the business, with commencement dates and open questions. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Build a buy-side or sell-side legal due-diligence issues list | From the data room, extract material contracts, change-of-control, litigation and consent items into a risk-ranked issues list with document references. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Build a legal due-diligence issues list covering FIRB and ACCC clearance | From the data room, extract material contracts, change-of-control, litigation, FIRB and ACCC merger items into a risk-ranked issues list with document references. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Draft a board legal-risk paper from the underlying advice | Turn the underlying memos into a board-paper section with issues, residual risk and decisions sought, plus a list of points that would distort the advice if shortened. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Build a privilege log from the document set | From the mail and document-system export, extract each item's author, recipients, date, custodian and document type, group email threads and near-duplicates, and list the candidates where a lawyer on the named legal-team list appears or the document is already marked privileged. The tool writes no line of the log: the lawyer decides each claim and words every description, and the tool then checks the finished log for blank fields, entries that conflict across one thread and documents in the set that appear on no line. | RedLawyer-led | The lawyer decides each privilege claim on the dominant-purpose test and reads back their own descriptions to confirm none discloses the advice or the instructions it was sought on, that the ground stated fits the document, and that nothing privileged has gone into the production set. |
| Draft an external-counsel brief and an invoice check against the engagement | Produce a first-draft brief from the email thread and papers, and compare invoices to the fee estimate and scope. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Draft the organisation's AI-use policy and review an AI-vendor contract | Produce a first-draft acceptable-use policy from the actual tool inventory, and an issues list on the vendor's data, training, indemnity and audit terms. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Draft an AI-use policy against OAIC guidance and the Voluntary AI Safety Standard | Draft an AI-use policy from the tool inventory and list vendor data, training, indemnity and audit issues against OAIC guidance, the Voluntary AI Safety Standard and ISO 42001. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Build a hold notice and a response pack for a regulator notice | Break the regulator's notice into its numbered demands and, against each one, extract the date range, the entity, the document category, and the compliance date and place for compliance the notice itself fixes. Organise the demands into a table of custodians — the people and business units who hold or control the material — and of the systems each category sits in. Against the search terms, dates and custodians the lawyer sets, list the candidate documents with a source location for each, and list every demand with no candidate document or custodian found against it. Flag privilege candidates by author, recipient and subject for the lawyer's decision. Once the lawyer has written the hold notice, compare it against the table and list every category, custodian or system it does not cover and every system where deletion or overwriting has not been stopped, and index the settled pack against the numbered demands. The tool writes no part of the hold notice, the covering letter or the schedule. | RedLawyer-led | The lawyer reads the tool's breakdown back against the notice itself — every numbered demand, date range, entity and the compliance date — since nothing else in this task catches a mis-read demand before the response goes short. The lawyer writes and issues the hold notice, and checks that its scope covers every category, custodian and system in the table and says what must not be deleted or overwritten, working through the tool's gap list and deciding for each gap whether it calls for a further search or is a matter to raise with the regulator before the compliance date. The lawyer decides each privilege claim, the lawyer writes the covering letter and any statement of the grounds of privilege, and the lawyer settles the schedule that goes to the regulator; a candidate list is not a production. |
| Build a hold notice and response pack for ASIC, ACCC, APRA, ATO or AFP | From the ASIC, ACCC, APRA, ATO or AFP notice (s 155 CCA, s 912C Corporations Act or TAA 1953 Sch 1 s 353-10), tabulate each numbered demand with its date range, entity, document category and compliance date, and the custodians and systems holding each category. Against the lawyer’s search terms, list the candidate documents with a source location, every demand nothing was found against, and the privilege candidates by author, recipient and subject. The tool writes no part of the hold notice, the covering letter, the schedule or any statement of the grounds of privilege: no draft, no first draft, no scaffold, no suggested paragraphs. Against the hold notice the lawyer has written, list every category, custodian and system it does not cover and every system where deletion or overwriting has not been stopped. | RedLawyer-led |
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| Build a dispute-intake snapshot from the claim papers | Extract parties, limitation candidates, hearing dates and a first-pass issues list from the claim documents, with a note of what still needs a quantum instruction. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Triage incoming legal requests into a sorted intake list | From the request queue, classify each item, draft a first response to routine ones, and route the rest with a suggested owner and due date. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Draft a first-pass NDA, MSA or SOW from the template and the deal facts | Fill the approved template from the business request and list clauses that still need a commercial input. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Find prior internal advice on a question from the knowledge store | Search the permitted prior-advice store and return the closest memos, positions and clauses with sources, plus a note when nothing on point is found. | GreenLawyer review |
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| Draft a litigation-hold notice from the claim or investigation | Produce a hold notice listing systems, custodians and date ranges from the claim or regulator notice. | YellowClose supervision |
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| Evaluate a legal AI tool for the in-house team | Build a requirements and risk matrix (security, data use, accuracy). | YellowClose supervision | GC approves selection. |
| Draft the company's internal GenAI acceptable-use policy | Draft policy covering approved tools, confidentiality and review. | YellowClose supervision | Lawyer adapts to business and law. |
| Triage incoming contract requests | Classify requests by type, risk and urgency into a queue. | GreenLawyer review | Lawyer checks risk classification. |
| Summarise board papers for legal risk issues | Flag legal risks and privilege issues in board papers. | YellowClose supervision | GC reviews; consider privilege before uploading. |
| Build a regulatory-change digest for the business | Summarise new laws and regulator updates relevant to the business. | YellowClose supervision | Lawyer verifies each item against the source. |
| Run a privilege review of business users' AI use | Assess where staff use of AI creates privilege risk. | YellowClose supervision | GC sets policy. |
| Build a legal-team GenAI playbook | Draft use cases and guardrails. | GreenLawyer review | GC approves. |
| Assess AI-related dispute exposure | Map supplier, product and liability exposure. | YellowClose supervision | Lawyer advises. |
Firm-wide obligations
| Obligation | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Trust accounting & handling client money | Checks that apply across files. |
| Costs, billing & litigation funding | Checks that apply across files. |
| Client-facing & access-to-justice AI tools | Checks that apply across files. |
| Incoming evidence — deepfakes & synthetic documents | Checks that apply across files. |
| AI decision systems | Checks that apply across files. |
| Confidentiality & client information | Checks that apply across files. |
| AML/CTF — the practice as a reporting entity | Checks that apply across files. |
What changes in Australia
| Topic | What changes |
|---|---|
| Professional duties | In-house lawyers carry the same ASCR duties as private practitioners, and also manage the organisation's AI governance as a corporate risk. |
| Spread of errors | One wrong output can pass into compliance and board reporting before a lawyer checks it. Verify before anything leaves the legal team. |
| Company secretary | Where the GC is also company secretary, ASIC v Bekier [2026] FCA 196 confirms personal exposure under Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 180(1) if material risks, including AI governance, are not escalated. |
What changes in New Zealand
| Topic | What changes |
|---|---|
| Conduct rules | The Conduct and Client Care Rules apply to in-house lawyers, including sections specific to in-house practice. |
| Privacy and AI | Privacy Act 2020 and the Law Society generative-AI guidance. |
| Employment | Employment Relations Act 2000, not the Fair Work Act. |
| Regulators | FMA, Commerce Commission, Inland Revenue, WorkSafe and the Privacy Commissioner, not ASIC, the ACCC or the ATO. |
- Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 · 2026-09-23
- NZLS: Generative AI guidance for lawyers (March 2024) · 2026-09-23
- OPC: Privacy Act 2020 information privacy principles · 2026-09-23
- Employment Relations Act 2000 · 2026-09-23
- Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 · 2026-09-23
What changes in United States
Known here as: In-house / general counsel
| Topic | What changes |
|---|---|
| Ethics | The Model Rules apply in-house. Formal Opinion 512, California's 2026 guidance (including agentic AI) and the admitting state's opinion govern company tools. |
| Supervision | Rules 5.1 and 5.3 cover non-lawyer staff and vendors. |
| Privilege | US attorney-client privilege and work product, not Australian legal professional privilege. A public tool is still a third party. |
- ABA Formal Opinion 512, Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools (29 July 2024) · 2026-09-23
- State Bar of California, Practical Guidance for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law (2026) · 2026-09-23
- ABA Model Rule 5.1, Responsibilities of a Partner or Supervisory Lawyer · 2026-09-23
- ABA Model Rule 5.3, Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistance · 2026-09-23
- ABA Model Rule 1.6, Confidentiality of Information · 2026-09-23
Precedents for this area
- Legal services request and triage form (in-house legal team) (Form, AI use Yellow). An intake form that business users complete to ask the legal team for help, with a triage matrix, privilege and confidentiality instructions, routing for whistleblower and regulator matters, and a notice for teams that use AI to sort requests.
- Legal professional privilege protocol for in-house teams (including AI tools and meeting transcription) (Policy, AI use Yellow). An organisation-wide protocol that tells staff how to create, keep and not lose legal professional privilege, with specific rules for AI tools, AI meeting note-takers, prompts and outputs, investigations and regulator requests.
- Whistleblower policy (Corporations Act Part 9.4AAA and tax whistleblowers), with rules for AI and case-management tools (Policy, AI use Yellow). A whistleblower policy that covers every matter s 1317AI(5) of the Corporations Act requires, explains tax whistleblower protections, and adds strict rules so disclosures and identifying information never go into unapproved AI, transcription or translation tools.
- Board legal and regulatory risk report (memo template, including AI risk and how the paper was prepared) (Memo, AI use Yellow). A board memo template for the General Counsel's periodic report on litigation, regulators, compliance, regulatory change and AI risk, built for directors' duty to understand what they read and with a transparent statement of any AI use in preparing it.
- Litigation hold (document preservation) notice, covering chat, AI prompts, outputs and meeting transcripts (Notice, AI use Yellow). A preservation notice that tells custodians what to keep once a claim, investigation or regulator notice is reasonably anticipated, including chat messages, AI prompts and outputs, AI meeting summaries and personal devices, with a custodian acknowledgement and an IT systems checklist.
- AI tool approval request, risk assessment and register entry (legal team and business use) (Form, AI use Green). A form for requesting approval of an AI tool: use case, data classes, vendor terms on training and retention, privacy, privilege and accuracy risks, controls, the decision and a register entry, with review triggers for model or vendor changes.
- Organisational AI use policy: completion guide for the National AI Centre template (legal team additions) (Policy, AI use Yellow). A guide for in-house lawyers adapting the National AI Centre's free AI policy template: what the template covers, the legal-team clauses to add (privilege, confidentiality, privacy, automated decisions, records and holds, board oversight) and traps.
All precedents for In-House / General Counsel. Signed-in accounts can read the full text.