Policy · Client-facing & access-to-justice AI tools
Human escalation and handoff protocol for client-facing AI tools
Protocol listing the triggers on which a client-facing AI tool must stop and hand over to a person (urgency, deadlines, family violence, self-harm risk, vulnerability, conflicts, requests for advice), with response times and records.
- Kind
- Policy. A policy or procedure for a firm or client.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Adopt before launching any chatbot, intake assistant or self-help tool, build the triggers into the tool's instructions and routing, and test every trigger before launch and after each change.
How AI may be used
AI can help build the escalation matrix from the tool's flows and test whether triggers fire, but the supervising lawyer sets the triggers, response times and safety responses.
AI may
- From the tool flows, list question types, the point a person must take over and the record that must be kept.
- Generate test conversations for each trigger, including indirect and non-English phrasing.
- Summarise escalation logs for the weekly review.
AI must not
- Must not decide that a risk-of-harm signal does not need escalation.
- Must not continue a conversation that has hit a safety trigger except to give safety information and connect the person.
- Must not give legal advice to "resolve" an escalation.
The lawyer checks
- Every trigger has an owner, a response time and an out-of-hours path.
- Safety messages and phone numbers are current.
- Missed escalations found in transcript review are treated as incidents.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Client-facing & access-to-justice AI tools
- Client notice: how we use AI on your matter, with consent form
- Terms of use and opening disclaimer for a client-facing legal AI assistant
- Pre-launch assurance and supervision checklist for client-facing AI tools
- Collection notice for AI intake and triage tools (APP 5), with short in-chat version
- Client letter: using AI tools with your legal matter (confidentiality, privilege and evidence)
All precedents for Client-facing & access-to-justice AI tools · Tasks and AI use in this area