Is this actually free, or do I hit a paywall at the end?

Free. The policy is complete on this page, you can copy or download it right now, and there is no email step. The paid kit is a separate thing you can ignore.

Is this legal advice?

No. It is practical business guidance written to be usable, not a legal document. Employment and privacy law differ by country, so have your final version checked against your local law before you rely on it.

Does using AI on a matter need to be disclosed to the client?

That depends on your retainer, your professional conduct rules, and the nature of the work, so it is a question for your firm rather than one a template should answer. What this policy does require is that nobody misrepresents the position if asked, and section 7 is where you record whatever disclosure standard you settle on.

Is a paid business tier safe for privileged material?

A business tier usually improves the data handling position, often materially, but this policy does not treat any tier as automatically sufficient for privileged material. The approval step in section 5 exists so that a person looks at the specific terms and makes a decision, rather than a tier name doing it for them.

Free generator

An AI usage policy built for a legal practice.

Privilege is not a setting you can turn back on. This writes the policy that tells your people where the line sits, filled in for your firm, before a matter document ends up somewhere it cannot be recalled from.

No email required. No signup. Copy it, download it, use it.

Your business

Business name

Who staff ask when unsure

Who approves new AI tools

Approved tools

Tool 1

Tool 2 (optional)

Tool 3 (optional)

Settings

A breach is treated as

Reviewed every

Policy owner

Require staff to note AI use on customer-facing written work Include the bias and fairness section

AI Usage Policy

AI Usage Policy for [Business name]

A plain-language policy covering what staff may and may not do with AI tools at work. Read it, adapt anything that does not fit, then circulate it.

1. Why we have this policy

[Business name] uses AI tools because they save time and improve our work. They also carry real risks: leaking confidential or customer data, producing wrong or biased output, and creating work that nobody has checked. This policy sets out how we use AI so we get the benefit without the harm.

It applies to everyone: employees, contractors, and anyone acting on behalf of [Business name].

2. The one rule that matters most

Never put information into an AI tool that you would not email to a stranger.

If you are unsure whether something is safe to enter, it is not. Ask your manager before you proceed. Asking is always the right call and nobody will think less of you for it.

3. What you must never enter into a public AI tool

Unless the specific tool has been approved for it in writing, never enter:

Any privileged communication, advice, or file note
Matter documents, pleadings, briefs, and draft advice
Client names combined with the nature of their matter
Anything covered by an undertaking, a confidentiality agreement, or a court order restricting disclosure
Settlement figures, negotiating positions, and instructions
Trust account records and client financial details
Personal information about opposing parties, witnesses, or third parties held on a matter file

4. Approved tools

Only use AI tools on this list for work. Using an unapproved tool for work is a breach of this policy.

Tool	Approved for	Not approved for
[Tool name]	Summarising a public judgment, drafting general correspondence with no matter detail, or restating a concept in plainer language	Anything from a matter file, any privileged material, or any client identifier

Free consumer versions of AI tools often train on what you enter and keep it. Paid business tiers usually let you turn that off. Only approve a tool once someone has checked how it handles your data.

5. Getting a new tool approved

Want to use an AI tool that is not on the list? Do not just start using it. Send a request to the operations manager with three things: what the tool is, what you want to use it for, and what data it would touch. The operations manager will check its data handling and security before approving or declining, and approved tools are added to the table above.

6. You are accountable for what AI produces

AI makes mistakes. It invents facts, gets numbers wrong, and is often confidently incorrect.

Check everything before it leaves the business. You are responsible for any AI-assisted work you send to a customer, publish, or rely on for a decision, exactly as if you had written it yourself.
Never send AI output to a customer or an external party without a person reading it first.
Do not use AI to make final decisions about people, including hiring, firing, discipline and pay, or about anything with legal, safety, or financial consequences. AI can assist your thinking. A person decides.

7. Be honest about AI use

If a customer or a colleague asks whether something was AI-assisted, tell the truth.
Do not present AI-generated work as if it involved professional judgement that it did not.
Customer-facing written work must note where AI was used in preparing it.

8. Privilege, and verifying authority

Entering privileged material into a tool that has not been approved in writing is treated as the most serious breach of this policy, because it is the one that cannot be undone by deleting a conversation.

Separately, any legal authority produced with AI assistance must be read at source before it is relied on or cited. A citation that resolves to nothing, or to a real case that does not say what was claimed, is the characteristic failure of these tools and it is the practitioner's responsibility, not the tool's.

9. Bias and fairness

AI reflects the data it was trained on and can produce biased or unfair output. Be especially careful using AI for anything involving people, and never let it be the sole basis for a decision that affects someone.

10. If something goes wrong

If you accidentally enter sensitive information into an AI tool, or you spot AI output that has caused a problem, tell your manager straight away. The point is to fix it fast, not to assign blame. Reporting something early is always treated better than a hidden problem that surfaces later.

11. Breaches

Not following this policy may be treated as a disciplinary matter under our normal procedures, because it can put the business, our customers, and our people at real risk.

Policy owner: [name and role]

Applies to: [Business name]

Version date: [date]

Review: every six months, because AI tools change fast

The risk that dominates in a legal practice

Two things make this sector different, and both are about permanence rather than probability.

The first is that privilege can be lost by disclosure, and a paste into a consumer tool is a disclosure to a third party. Unlike most data incidents, the damage is not that someone might misuse the information later. The damage is done at the moment of entry, it is difficult to argue away, and it affects the client's position rather than only the firm's.

The second is fabricated authority. A tool that invents a case, a citation, or a statutory provision produces output that looks exactly like the real thing to anyone not checking it, and legal work is precisely where confident invention is most costly and most visible. The verification requirement in section 6 is not a formality here. Treat any authority a tool gives you as unverified until you have read the source yourself.

What this looks like in practice

A solicitor is drafting a submission and asks a public chatbot for authorities on a point. It returns four cases with citations, one of which is well known and three of which are not. The unfamiliar three read plausibly and the citations are correctly formatted.

Under this policy the submission cannot go out until each authority has been read at source. In practice one of the three will often turn out not to exist, or to exist and say something adjacent to the claim rather than the claim itself. Neither failure is visible from the output.

Nothing in this scenario involved entering client information, so the confidentiality rule was never engaged. That is the point of having both rules: the two big risks in this sector are independent, and a policy that only covers data leaves the second one open.

Why this is free

An AI policy is the first thing a business needs and the easiest thing to put off. Charging for it would just mean fewer businesses have one. Handing it over, with no email wall in front of it, is also the honest way to show you what our work is like before you spend anything.

Use it, change it, put your own letterhead on it. There is no attribution requirement and nothing to sign.

If the policy was useful

The policy is document one of nine.

A policy tells people where the line is. It does not tell you which tools to trust, where AI is actually worth using in your business, or whether any of it paid off. That is the rest of the kit.

Data governance checklist, so you know what a tool does with your data before it touches it
Tool evaluation scorecard, with two real tools compared and the better product losing
Use-case grid, seven candidates scored including the high-value one worth refusing
90-day adoption plan, with the staff announcement script and the five failure modes
ROI tracker, a worked quarter and the three challenges a sceptic always makes
Prompt libraries for finance, operations, marketing, HR and customer service

Get the full kit$149 one time, nine documents

Other versions of this policy

The same document rebuilt around a different set of risks. If none of these is you, the general version is the place to start.

Questions

Is this actually free, or do I hit a paywall at the end?: Free. The policy is complete on this page, you can copy or download it right now, and there is no email step. The paid kit is a separate thing you can ignore.
Is this legal advice?: No. It is practical business guidance written to be usable, not a legal document. Employment and privacy law differ by country, so have your final version checked against your local law before you rely on it, particularly the breaches section.
Can I edit it and put my own branding on it?: Yes. Change anything, remove sections that do not apply, add your logo. There is no attribution requirement.
Does it work outside New Zealand?: The policy is deliberately written without country-specific law in it, so the substance travels. The one part to check locally is how breaches are handled under your employment rules.
How long should an AI policy be?: Short enough that people read it. A one-page policy that staff follow beats a twenty-page document nobody opens. This one is deliberately about one page once you delete what does not apply.
How often should we update it?: Every six months is a sensible default while AI tools are changing this fast, and immediately if you approve a new tool or something goes wrong.
Does using AI on a matter need to be disclosed to the client?: That depends on your retainer, your professional conduct rules, and the nature of the work, so it is a question for your firm rather than one a template should answer. What this policy does require is that nobody misrepresents the position if asked, and section 7 is where you record whatever disclosure standard you settle on.
Is a paid business tier safe for privileged material?: A business tier usually improves the data handling position, often materially, but this policy does not treat any tier as automatically sufficient for privileged material. The approval step in section 5 exists so that a person looks at the specific terms and makes a decision, rather than a tier name doing it for them.
Who wrote this?: Plainstart, a brand of Sypher Limited. We publish plain-language operational material for small and medium businesses adopting AI.