The New Zealand Law Society's guidance on generative AI does not add new rules. It reads the existing Conduct and Client Care Rules against the tools: the lawyer stays responsible for the work (rule 3), client information cannot go into a tool whose terms let the provider see or reuse it (chapter 8), staff use must be authorised and supervised (rule 11), clients may need to be told (rules 3.5 and 7.1), billing may need rethinking, and anything filed in court must be checked by a human (rules 10.9 and 13.1). For a small firm, that is a short list of questions to ask any vendor before a single client document goes in.
What the guidance is, and is not
New Zealand has no AI statute. The Law Society's guidance, first published in 2024 and kept on its AI hub, points lawyers to the duties they already have, alongside the courts' own guidelines on generative AI and the Privacy Commissioner's expectations. It is written for every size of practice, so most of it is a question with the answer left to you. Below are the questions, with what they look like for a firm of two to ten lawyers.
Responsibility stays with the lawyer
The guidance puts rule 3 first: a lawyer is not absolved from responsibility for legal advice or defects in an end-product because a tool produced it. It names the failure mode plainly, content that is persuasive and false, and asks lawyers to fact-check outputs and verify every citation and source.
For a small firm the practical rule is that no tool output reaches a client or a court without a lawyer reading it as if a junior had written it. A memo that cites nothing is easier to check than one that cites confidently.
Confidentiality, privilege and the provider's terms
This is the section that decides which tools a firm can use at all. Chapter 8 of the rules protects client information, and the guidance warns that a provider may be able to see inputs and outputs, and that entering client details or privileged material into an external tool may breach both confidentiality and privilege. It asks lawyers to read the terms of service for data reuse, ownership of outputs, where data is stored and who is liable, and to test tools with fictional data, never a real file.
The Privacy Act 2020 sits beside this. Information privacy principle 12 governs disclosure of personal information outside New Zealand, and the guidance suggests a privacy impact assessment before a tool is adopted.
- Ask the vendor where client files are stored, and in which country.
- Ask whether client information is used to train models. The answer should be no, in writing.
- Ask who at the vendor can read a file, and when.
- Ask what the client sees, and whether the tool ever gives the client anything that reads as legal advice.
Supervision and staff
Rules 11 and 11.1 make the practice responsible for how its people work. The guidance says staff should not use generative AI unless authorised, and should disclose any use to a supervisor. In a small firm that is a one-page policy: which tools are approved, what may be entered, and who signs off before output leaves the building.
Telling the client
Because the lawyer-client relationship is fiduciary, the guidance expects transparency about how work is done. The client care information under rule 3.5 should say who does the work and how, and rule 7.1 asks lawyers to consult clients on the steps taken to carry out instructions. A sentence in the terms of engagement that names the tools the firm uses, and what they do, meets both.
Fees
The guidance notes that time-based billing may need review when a tool does in minutes what a person did in hours, and suggests fixed fees as a way to avoid surprising the client. A firm that uses a tool to build the case file and draft the first memo is well placed to quote a fixed fee for the first stage of a matter, because the first stage has become predictable.
The court
Judges have been asked to look for signs of generative AI in submissions, and overseas lawyers who filed invented authorities have faced discipline. The guidance ties this to rule 10.9 on misleading conduct and rule 13.1 on the duty to the court. Nothing drafted with a tool should be filed until every authority in it has been opened and read.
How Sidqo answers these questions
We built Sidqo for Lawyers to be the kind of tool a firm can say yes to under this guidance, and the answers are on the Sidqo for Lawyers page for anyone to read. Case files and documents are stored with Supabase in London; the application runs on Vercel in the United States; the models that read case files are run by Anthropic and Google, outside New Zealand. Client information is not used to train AI models. Sidqo staff do not read case files except to fix a problem a firm has asked us to look at.
The memo a New Zealand firm gets cites no legislation yet. Where a provision decides a point it writes [statute to confirm], so the lawyer's check is built into the draft rather than hoped for. The intake assistant gathers facts and documents from the client and never tells them what the law is or what to do. Those two choices follow directly from rule 3 and from the guidance on client-facing tools.
A one-page policy for a small firm
- The tools the firm has approved, by name, and what each may be used for.
- What may be entered: no client information into any tool whose terms have not been read and filed.
- Who reviews output before it reaches a client or a court.
- The sentence in the terms of engagement that tells clients how the firm uses these tools.
- A date, a year out, to read this page again.
Questions
Does the Law Society require lawyers to tell clients when they use generative AI?
The guidance says disclosure may be needed given the fiduciary relationship, and points to rule 3.5 on client care information and rule 7.1 on consulting the client. A line in the terms of engagement is the simplest way to meet it.
Can client documents be entered into a public chatbot?
The guidance warns against it: the provider may see inputs and outputs, and entering client details or privileged material may breach confidentiality and privilege. Read the provider's terms first, and use fictional data for testing.
Who is responsible if an AI tool gets the law wrong?
The lawyer. Rule 3 applies whatever produced the draft, and the guidance says a lawyer is not absolved from responsibility for defects in an end-product.
Sidqo provides legal information, not legal representation. This guide describes the general position in New Zealand for lawyers; it is not advice on any client's matter. Check the current legislation before relying on a date or a figure.