The duty you carry
Three duties meet in the prompt box: confidentiality under your law society's rules, solicitor-client privilege, and supervision of the people doing the work. Courts are prepared to treat pasting client material into a public AI tool as voluntary disclosure, and the duty of technological competence means "we didn't know the tool did that" is not a position a firm wants to argue. What clients and regulators expect is what they have always expected: reasonable safeguards, demonstrably applied.
The moment it breaks
Synthetic example. The real version happens on your busiest day.
Caught at the prompt box: the drafting help still arrives, the client and the matter never leave the firm, and the event is logged as evidence of supervision.
Caught, in your vocabulary
Client and party names
People, companies, opposing parties: the identifiers that connect a prompt to a matter.
Matter facts and deal terms
Figures, dates, and draft language whose confidentiality is the point of the retainer.
Contact and account details
Client emails, phone numbers, and payment details sitting in intake notes and correspondence.
The rules you answer to
Law society rules
Confidentiality, supervision, and the duty of technological competence adopted across Canadian law societies. These duties follow the work into every new tool.
Solicitor-client privilege
Privilege depends on confidentiality being kept. Disclosure to a third-party AI tool is a voluntary act no deletion request can undo. Prevention is the only remedy that works.
PIPEDA & Quebec Law 25
Client personal information is still personal information, and Law 25 expects control over its communication, with penalties reaching C$25M or 4% of worldwide turnover.
From our research
How One Careless AI Prompt Can Waive Privilege
A single prompt pasted into a public AI tool can strip privilege or break confidentiality on a client's matter. Early court rulings show the disclosure is voluntary — and irreversible. Here's how firms are closing the gap.
What the Duty of Technological Competence Now Requires When Your Firm Uses ChatGPT
Law societies expect lawyers to understand the technology they use. When an articling student pastes a client's file into ChatGPT, that duty is no longer abstract — it's a disclosure you can't recall.
What a Partner Owes When an Articling Student Pastes a Client File Into AI
An articling student pastes a client file into ChatGPT to speed up a memo. The partner signs the work and carries the risk. Here is what supervisory duty actually requires when juniors use AI.
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