Client intake and confidentiality

Who it applies to

Law firms, accountancy practices and other professional firms that take on new clients and matters, and that are considering AI tools for intake, conflict checks or document review.

What it requires, in plain terms

The rules differ by profession and country, but four obligations recur.

• Know your client. Anti-money-laundering rules require identity checks and due diligence before acting. In the UK these come from the Money Laundering Regulations 2017; firms supervised by the SRA, ICAEW or another body follow that body's guidance.
• Conflicts of interest. A firm must check that a new matter does not conflict with existing or former clients before accepting it, and record the check.
• Confidentiality. Client information must be protected, including from the firm's own vendors. Professional bodies have published guidance on generative AI that applies this duty to AI tools. For US lawyers, the American Bar Association's Formal Opinion 512 (July 2024) addresses competence, confidentiality, communication and fees when using generative AI.
• Supervision. Work produced with AI assistance remains the professional's responsibility and must be reviewed.

Key dates

As of November 2026: these are standing obligations rather than new deadlines. ABA Formal Opinion 512 was issued on 29 July 2024. Check your regulator's current guidance, which is updated more often than the underlying rules.

What it means for your systems

• Intake forms, identity documents and engagement letters arrive in many formats. Reading them into the practice management system is mechanical work, but the decision to accept a client is not.
• A conflict check means searching names, related parties and former matters across the practice system and document archive, including spelling variants and corporate relationships, and recording the result.
• Client material should not leave the firm's environment for an outside model unless the client's terms and the firm's policy allow it, and that should be a setting, not a habit.

Official sources

• ABA Formal Opinion 512: Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017 (opens in a new tab)
• SRA: Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs (opens in a new tab)

How this connects to our work

Supervised agents can gather intake documents and run conflict searches as a workflow that stops for a partner's sign-off, inside the firm's own environment. See also Legal and professional and the explainer on human sign-off.