Letter · In-House / General Counsel
Outside-counsel guidelines on generative AI (United States)
Instructions from a client to outside counsel on generative AI: when counsel must say a tool was used, what must not be input, how AI-assisted time is billed, and that a lawyer reviews anything filed.
- Kind
- Letter. A letter or email you adapt and send.
- Where it applies
- United States
- AI use
- Yellow You and the tool draft together, with you directing. You check every statement you rely on.
- Law stated as at
- 22 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 22 October 2026 against the 8 authorities it cites, for United States.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when a company wants written instructions for law firms it engages. It is a client instruction of the kind Formal Opinion 512 says counsel must follow. It is not a court rule and it does not replace the firm's own professional duties.
Used for these tasks
- Draft an external-counsel brief and an invoice check against the engagement
- Draft the organisation's AI-use policy and review an AI-vendor contract
- Draft the company's internal GenAI acceptable-use policy
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
A tool may assemble these guidelines from the company's choices in the schedule. The general counsel decides the choices, including whether a tool may receive company information at all.
AI may
- Insert the company's selected options from a completed schedule into the matching paragraphs
- List paragraphs that still contain an unchosen alternative
- Produce a short cover note listing the firms the guidelines will go to, from a list the lawyer supplies
AI must not
- Must not choose the company's position on input, billing or disclosure
- Must not tell a firm that these guidelines override a court order or a rule of professional conduct
- Must not describe a named firm's tools without the firm's own statement
- Must not send the guidelines
The lawyer checks
- Each bracketed choice is the company's, and it matches the company's own AI policy if it has one
- The billing instruction is consistent with the fee agreement, and it does not ask a firm to hide time that was actually spent
- The guidelines tell counsel to follow a stricter court order and the rules of the jurisdiction where counsel is admitted
- A firm that will input company information has completed the vendor questions, or is forbidden to input it
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 available after you log in. It is free. When you log 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.
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- Legal professional privilege protocol for in-house teams (including AI tools and meeting transcription)
- Payment times report: who reports and when the two reports fall due
- Continuous disclosure decision log: facts before any announcement
- Notice to a person interviewed in an internal investigation (who the lawyers act for, privilege and confidentiality)
- Legal department generative AI policy (United States)
- Whistleblower policy (Corporations Act Part 9.4AAA and tax whistleblowers), with rules for AI and case-management tools
- Board legal and regulatory risk report (memo template, including AI risk and how the paper was prepared)
- Instruction letter and terms of engagement for external lawyers (in-house client, including AI use and billing rules)
- Signed contract: dates and obligations tracker
- Cover letter sending an AI vendor questionnaire (United States)
- Litigation hold (document preservation) notice, covering chat, AI prompts, outputs and meeting transcripts
- AI tool approval request, risk assessment and register entry (legal team and business use)
- Organisational AI use policy: completion guide for the National AI Centre template (legal team additions)
All precedents for In-House / General Counsel · Tasks and AI use in this area