Can you use AI to draft client emails? What Australian regulators and courts say.
Short answer: yes, with care. Drafting correspondence is the kind of lower-risk work the regulators point to, provided client confidences are protected and a lawyer checks every draft before it goes. Here is what each source says, in plain English, with links.
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Published 3 November 2026
The short version
- Regulators: the joint statement from the Law Society of NSW, the Legal Practice Board of WA and the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner (December 2024) asks lawyers to limit AI to tasks that are lower-risk and easier to verify, and gives "drafting a polite email" as an example.
- Courts: the NSW Supreme Court's Practice Note SC Gen 23 and the Federal Court's GPN-AI deal with documents used in proceedings: affidavits, witness statements, expert reports and submissions. Ordinary correspondence with a client is not their focus, but their rules on confidential and suppressed information still matter.
- Your duties do not change: confidentiality, supervision, honesty with clients and accurate billing all apply to work prepared with AI.
What the regulators say
In December 2024 three regulators issued a joint Statement on the use of artificial intelligence in Australian legal practice. The points that matter most for email:
- Keep to lower-risk work. Lawyers should limit AI "to tasks which are lower-risk and easier to verify", for example "drafting a polite email or suggesting how to structure an argument".
- Protect confidences. "Solicitors cannot safely enter confidential, sensitive or privileged client information into public AI chatbots/copilots." The tool you use, and where it sends information, matters.
- Supervise. Firms should work out how they will "continuously and actively supervise the use of AI tools by junior and support staff".
- Be open with clients. Be transparent about AI use and record and disclose it to clients where appropriate.
- Bill honestly. Time billed must "accurately represent the legal work done", and AI use should not unnecessarily increase costs for the client.
What the courts say
NSW Supreme Court, Practice Note SC Gen 23 (commenced 3 February 2025; published in the NSW Government Gazette):
- Gen AI must not be used to generate the content of affidavits, witness statements or character references, and those documents must say so (paras 10 and 13).
- Information subject to suppression or non-publication orders, or otherwise protected, must not be entered into a Gen AI program unless specified safeguards are met, including that the data is not used to train a model (para 9A).
- Where Gen AI helps prepare written submissions, the author must verify that every citation exists and is accurate and relevant, and that check cannot be done only with a Gen AI tool (paras 16 and 17).
- Spell and grammar checkers, search engines and legal research software are not "Gen AI" for the Practice Note (para 6).
Federal Court, Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Practice Note (GPN-AI) (16 April 2026; read the Practice Note):
- Anyone using Gen AI should understand its capabilities, limitations and risks, and be able to tell the Court what Gen AI was used (paras 2.1 and 2.3).
- Affidavits and witness statements must reflect the witness's own recollection, and expert reports the expert's own opinion; some uses must be disclosed (paras 4.8 to 4.10).
- Misuse can bring consequences "including adverse costs orders" (para 5.1).
Other courts have their own protocols. Our court-by-court AI rules tracker lists them all with links.
A practical checklist for drafting emails with AI
- Use a tool built for confidential work, not a public chatbot. Know where your data is stored and processed, and confirm it is not used to train models.
- Read every draft before it goes. The draft is a starting point; the advice is yours.
- Never paste suppressed or court-protected material into an AI tool unless the safeguards your court requires are in place.
- Check any case or section the draft mentions against the source yourself.
- Tell your team the rules and supervise how juniors and support staff use AI.
- Bill for the work actually done, and tell clients how you use AI where it is relevant to them.
Where AI Legal Toolbox fits
AI Legal Toolbox works inside Outlook. It puts suggested replies in your Drafts folder and nothing is sent until you send it. Case names and sections are only given when they appear in a source you provided or your firm library, and anything else is removed and marked. Client correspondence is never used to train AI models. See the facts page for where data is stored and processed.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Check the current version of each source before relying on it.
Questions practitioners ask
Is drafting a client email with AI allowed?
The joint statement from the Law Society of NSW, the Legal Practice Board of WA and the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner gives drafting a polite email as an example of lower-risk work suited to AI, provided confidences are protected and the lawyer checks the result.
Does SC Gen 23 apply to my emails?
SC Gen 23 is about documents used in NSW Supreme Court proceedings, such as affidavits, witness statements, character references and submissions. Its rule against entering suppressed or protected information into Gen AI still matters for anything you put into an AI tool.
Do I have to tell clients I use AI?
The joint statement asks lawyers to be transparent about AI use and to record and disclose it to clients where appropriate, and to bill only for legal work actually done.
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