AI for law: what a small Victorian firm can use now, and what to avoid

This is general information, not legal advice or advice on your professional obligations.

A small Victorian firm can safely use AI today for the admin around the advice: intake, booking, document chasing, first drafts of routine letters and plain matter updates. What it shouldn’t do is put confidential client information into public chatbots, or rely on AI output without a lawyer checking it.

That’s also the line the Victorian Legal Services Board draws. Below is what it says, what the Supreme Court of Victoria adds, and the jobs I’d start with if I were setting up AI for a Melbourne law firm.

What the regulators say

In December 2024 the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner, the Law Society of NSW and the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia issued a joint statement on AI in legal practice. Its main points:

• Confidentiality. Lawyers “cannot safely enter confidential, sensitive or privileged client information into public AI chatbots/copilots”. Commercial tools need a close read of their contract terms first.
• Your own judgement. Lawyers “cannot rely on the output of an AI tool as a substitute for their own assessment and analysis of a client’s needs and circumstances.”
• Accuracy. The statement says no tool built on current large language models is free of “hallucinations”, so output has to be checked.
• Costs. AI use shouldn’t “unnecessarily increase costs” for the client.
• Policy and supervision. Firms should have a clear, risk-based AI policy, supervise staff who use it, and be open with clients about how it’s used.

In May 2026 the Supreme Court of Victoria replaced its earlier AI guidelines with a practice note, SC Gen 25. It makes three points that matter to a small firm. Court users are responsible for their court documents whether or not AI helped, and AI output “must be verified with meaningful human control.” Nothing confidential or sensitive should go into a public AI tool, because anything entered “could become publicly available.” And you need to be ready to show which parts of a court document AI helped produce and how you checked them, because the court can ask.

What a small firm can use now

Most of a small firm’s lost time sits around the advice, in the steps before and after a lawyer does the legal work. Those steps are where AI is safest and most useful:

• Enquiries. A new enquiry gets a prompt reply, the basic facts are collected in a form, and the first call is booked.
• Document chasing. A list of which clients still owe ID or documents, with reminders drafted for your approval.
• Matter updates. A plain-English update drafted from the file status, which a lawyer reads and approves before it goes out.
• Routine letters. Your own template filled in from the intake notes, ready for a lawyer to edit and sign.
• Research. Use research tools built for lawyers rather than public chatbots, and check every result against the source. The court’s practice note says asking an AI tool to confirm its own sources is not enough.

None of these replace a lawyer. They clear the desk so the lawyer’s time goes on the advice.

What to avoid

• Pasting client files into a public chatbot. The regulators and the OAIC both say not to.
• Unchecked citations. Every case and section an AI tool gives you has to be checked against the source.
• Letting AI talk to clients unsupervised about their matter. It can confirm a booking. It shouldn’t explain their legal position.
• Using it without a policy. A one-page policy that says which tools are allowed and for what is enough to start.

Where I’d start

I’d start with one job that never touches a client file, such as replying to new enquiries and booking the first call. It’s quick to test, it’s easy to check, and it shows the team what the tool can and can’t do before anything sensitive is involved.

That’s how I run my own business. Every enquiry gets a reply in my words, I check each draft, and nothing goes out until I’ve read it. A law firm needs the same rule, with a lawyer doing the reading.

AI is also changing how clients find a firm. More people ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI answers for a recommendation before they search. If you want your firm to be one of the names it gives, that’s what AI SEO for Melbourne firms covers.

If you’d like to know which admin job is costing your firm the most time, the free snapshot finds it and tells you if AI can take it. For the full picture of what I set up for law firms, see AI for lawyers in Melbourne.

Related guides

AI in a law firm works best as part of a wider plan. These guides go deeper on the parts that deserve their own page.