Legal edition

The Netherlands Bar Association (NOvA) has published its long-awaited 'Recommendations on AI in the legal profession'. The Digitalisation & AI project group drew up the document. It works through the core values one by one: expertise, confidentiality, independence, integrity, and impartiality. Each core value comes with concrete points to watch for AI use. Four pieces of advice stand out: invest in AI knowledge, only use tools that state their source, always check output by hand, and thoroughly assess the contract terms of your AI supplier. Also watch for vendor lock-in: the risk that you can no longer leave a supplier later without high costs or hassle. These recommendations come from the Bar Association and are aimed at lawyers. If you work as an in-house counsel, notarial staff member, or compliance officer, they don't apply to you directly. Still, the document is useful: it gives you a ready-made structure to check internal policy against. Action: hold your current AI agreements up against the five core values and note where you still have nothing in place. The structure per core value is smart, because an AI tool rarely touches just one value, often several at once. If you enter a file into a public service, that touches confidentiality. If you use an answer without checking it, that touches expertise. If you're stuck with one supplier that manages your data, that touches independence. This way you see exactly which risk applies to your situation, instead of one general verdict on 'AI'. The advice to only use tools with source citations sounds simpler than it is. A source citation doesn't prove the source is correct, let alone that the source actually says what's claimed. It only lowers the cost of your check, because you know where to look. The real line lies in the word 'by hand'. Once you use AI to save time and then speed up the checking too, the gain disappears or the risk grows. Factor that into your rates and planning.

Source (in Dutch) →