Policy · Knowledge Management
AI knowledge assistant governance and source-citation policy (permission-aware search, information barriers, citations)
A policy for a firm AI knowledge assistant: approved sources, permission-aware retrieval that respects matter security and information barriers, mandatory source citations, "not found" behaviour, user verification duties, index hygiene and retention, audits and incidents.
- Kind
- Policy. A policy or procedure for a firm or client.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales
- 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
Use when a firm deploys an AI assistant or search tool over its precedent bank, know-how or document management system. It sets the rules for the tool and its users; it does not authorise the tool, which must first be approved under the AI tool approval process.
How AI may be used
The assistant may answer "how do we do X" questions from approved sources with citations. Lawyers verify every answer against the cited source and primary law before relying on it, and information barriers are enforced by the system, not by the model.
AI may
- Answer questions from approved precedents and know-how, citing the source id, version and paragraph.
- Return the closest firm precedents and practice notes, and say clearly when nothing on point is found.
- Summarise new judgments and practice notes for know-how updates, for a lawyer to review before circulation.
AI must not
- Must not retrieve documents from matters the user cannot access, or from matters behind an information barrier that excludes the user.
- Must not present an answer without sources, or present the firm's know-how as a statement of current law without a review date.
- Must not be used as the source of authorities cited to a court; citations must be checked against official sources.
The lawyer checks
- Barrier and permission tests pass before launch and after every connector or index change.
- Destroyed or retired documents have been removed from indexes within the set time.
- Users have been trained on verification duties and court practice note requirements.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Official form
Open the official form. Always use the current version from the issuer.
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 Knowledge Management
- Precedent review and approval procedure (including AI-drafted and AI-updated precedents)
- Precedent metadata and version-control standard (for people and AI retrieval)
- AI prompt library governance policy (prompt templates linked to precedents and tasks)
- Knowledge-base content licensing and copyright checklist (before AI ingestion)
- Matter close-out know-how capture form with confidentiality scrub
All precedents for Knowledge Management · Tasks and AI use in this area