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Attaching a document, connecting a folder or turning on a connector is a disclosure of that material to a company, on that company’s terms. That is true whatever the plan and whatever the marketing says. This guide is the set of questions to answer before it happens, and the one-line record to keep afterwards.
Where the documents go
It helps to be precise about what each action does.
Attaching a file to a chat sends the file to the provider. It is stored with the conversation in your account.
Connecting a folder in Cowork lets Claude read every file in the folder. The reading, and the work, happen on the provider’s servers; the folder is the workspace, not a boundary. Files Claude creates are written back into the folder.
Turning on a connector lets Claude reach a service, and lets material flow to that service under its terms.
Installing a plugin may add connectors, and may add software that runs on your own computer (Guide 5).
None of these is “local” in the sense that matters for the confidentiality duty. All of them are handling of client information by a third party. The questions below decide whether that handling is acceptable for the material in front of you.
The five questions
1. Is this confidential, privileged, or somebody’s personal information? Usually the answer is yes. Most of a brief is. A reported judgment is not, nor is legislation, nor a practice directive. If the answer is no, the material may go into your ordinary tool. If it is yes, keep going.
2. Has anybody said no? The attorney or the client may have excluded AI on this matter. There may be a court order. Documents obtained through discovery may carry limits on what may be done with them. (In New South Wales, for example, the Supreme Court’s practice note provides that such material may not be put into a generative AI program unless it stays in a controlled environment: Practice Note SC Gen 23, para 9A. South Africa has nothing so specific yet, which does not mean the underlying obligation is absent.) If there is a restriction, the material does not go in.
3. Do you know the tool’s terms and settings? Not in general; for the plan and the account you are logged into now. Is your input used for training? How long is it kept? Who at the provider can see it? What has been connected to the account? If you do not know, stop and find out. This takes twenty minutes once.
4. Is that handling consistent with the duty of confidentiality? A paid plan is not an answer by itself. The Bar Standards Board’s view is that free, publicly available AI systems are unlikely to meet the conditions for outsourcing under its rules (Guidance on the use of AI and other technologies, May 2026, rC86). That is the English rule, not ours, but the reasoning travels: the question is whether the provider’s handling meets the standard the duty requires. If it does not, use a different tool or do not put the material in.
5. Does the task need the identifying details at all? Often it does not. “Restructure these heads” does not need the client’s name. But be careful with the idea that removing names makes material anonymous: a chronology of dates, places and amounts identifies a matter without a single name in it. If the details are needed, put in only what the task needs, and note the decision.
Four examples, all made up
Summarising a reported judgment: stops at question 1; not confidential; go ahead, then check the summary.
Building a chronology from the client’s emails in a tool whose settings you have never looked at: stops at question 3; go and look.
Analysing the other side’s discovered documents: question 2; there may be a restriction; check before anything goes in.
Reworking your own draft heads that quote the record: question 5; the task probably does not need the names; leave them out.
Applying this to a Cowork folder
The matter folder from Guide 2 will usually contain material that passes question 1 as confidential. So the folder is connected only once questions 2 to 4 have been answered for your plan and account, and only that folder, not anything wider. Connectors stay off unless a specific task needs one and the service’s terms have been read. Plugins are read before they run (Guide 5).
If the attorney or the client has excluded AI on the matter, the folder is not connected at all, and the exclusion is recorded in the brief file.
Write it down
For anything sensitive, one line in the brief file: what went in, into which tool, under which plan, why. It takes a minute. If the question is ever asked, that line is the answer.
Tell the attorney
Attorneys and clients increasingly want to know, in general terms, whether and how AI is used on their matters. Tell them, once, when the brief is accepted, and record that you did. A general statement of method (“documents are processed in a tool on a business plan whose terms exclude training; every citation is checked against the judgment”) answers most of the questions before they are asked. Guide 11 covers the related conversation about fees.
Check yourself
At the end of this guide you should be able to answer the five questions for the plan and account you use; know which categories of material in the current matter may go in and which may not; have the answer to question 2 for that matter recorded; and have a line in the brief file for each sensitive upload or connection.
The short form of this page is list 1 on the checklists page.
Sources on file: LPC Code of Conduct, paras 3.6, 57.2 and 57.3. Supreme Court of New South Wales, Practice Note SC Gen 23, para 9A. Bar Standards Board, Guidance on the use of AI and other technologies (May 2026), rC86. Courts of New Zealand, Guidelines for use of generative AI: Lawyers (7 December 2023).