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AI in Canada AI in Canada

A legal guide to developing and using artificial intelligence
September 10, 2025 67 MIN READ
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Things to know

  • Provincial and territorial law societies govern the conduct of lawyers and paralegals in Canada, including by providing guidance on legal and ethical issues.
  • Most law societies have issued guidance that sets out guardrails and measures that licensees should implement when using generative AI in their legal practice. Common themes in the law society guidance include:
    • the need to understand generative AI in general and to conduct due diligence on the specific generative AI tools being used
    • the importance of being transparent with clients about the use of AI to perform legal services
    • the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of client information
    • the importance of maintaining privilege
    • the importance of independently verifying AI-generated content
  • Given that many issues around AI and privilege are yet to be considered by Canadian courts, making privileged information accessible by any AI model should be approached with caution. Similarly, in interacting with AI for legal purposes, it should not be assumed that all prompts and output will be protected by privilege.

Things to do

  • Understand the operational and legal risks and limitations of generative AI, including issues relating to client confidentiality, privilege, copyright infringement and ownership of AI content.
  • Develop and maintain internal policies or guidelines on the use of generative AI. Among other topics, ensure that client confidentiality and privilege are addressed.
  • Review AI-generated content to ensure it meets ethical and legal standards. Scrutinize results for biases. Verify through fact-checking that results are accurate.
  • Do not include within prompts any confidential or sensitive information, or information that could otherwise be used to identify clients or specific legal matters, without first conducting thorough due diligence on the security of the AI tool and the use of inputs by the applicable provider.
  • Check with the court, tribunal, or other relevant decision-maker about requirements for attributing the use of generative AI. By way of example, the Federal Court and various provincial courts require counsel to inform the court and other parties if any litigation documents contain AI-generated content. Certain courts separately now require counsel to certify as to the authenticity of all case law relied upon in written briefing.
  • Review the relevant guidelines from law societies in the jurisdictions that you operate in to identify the specific requirements with which you will need to comply. By way of example, some law societies, including from the Barreau du Québec, provide specific guidance around record-keeping in respect of the use of generative AI tools.
  • Consider if, or to what extent, laws of general application (such as privacy laws and human rights laws) apply to your use of generative AI tools.

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