Legal AI glossary
Plain-English definitions of the AI terms solicitors in England and Wales meet when adopting legal AI, from hallucinations and privilege to playbooks and data residency. Each entry explains what the term means for a UK law firm, with an illustrative example and links to related terms.
A
- AI hallucination
- An AI hallucination is output from an AI model that is false or unsupported but presented as fact, such as a citation to a judgment that does not exist.
- AI usage credits
- AI usage credits are a way of paying for AI software in which a firm buys credits that are used up by the AI work it runs, instead of paying a fixed fee for each user.
- AI workflow
- An AI workflow is a repeatable sequence of steps in which AI carries out defined tasks on a set of documents, such as applying a playbook and producing a report, with human review built into the sequence.
- Audit trail
- An audit trail is a time-stamped record of who did what in a system, such as who reviewed, approved or exported a document, or tried to open one without permission.
C
- Citation verification
- Citation verification is checking that each source cited in a piece of work exists, can be found from the citation given, and says what it is cited for.
- Client confidentiality
- Client confidentiality is a solicitor's duty to keep the affairs of current and former clients confidential unless disclosure is required or permitted by law or the client consents.
- Contract review
- Contract review is reading a contract to identify its key terms, risks and departures from a client's or firm's preferred position, and recommending changes.
D
- Data residency
- Data residency is the geographic location where data is stored and processed, which affects the law that applies to it and the safeguards needed to move it across borders.
- Document risk assessment
- A document risk assessment identifies the legal and commercial risks in a set of documents, rates each one and records how it will be dealt with, often in a risk register.
- Due diligence review
- A due diligence review is an investigation of the documents of a target business or asset before a transaction, to identify the legal risks a buyer, lender or investor needs to know about.
G
- Generative AI
- Generative AI is artificial intelligence that produces new content, such as text, images or code, in response to an instruction, rather than only sorting or retrieving existing material.
- Grounding
- Grounding is making an AI model base its answer on specific source material, such as the documents in a matter, and cite that material, instead of answering from its general training.
H
- Hamid jurisdiction
- The Hamid jurisdiction is the power of the High Court and the Upper Tribunal to regulate their own procedures and enforce the duties lawyers owe to them, including by requiring explanations and referring lawyers to their regulators.
- Human-in-the-loop review
- Human-in-the-loop review is a way of working in which a qualified person checks, and can amend or reject, AI output before it is relied on or sent to anyone.
L
- Large language model (LLM)
- A large language model (LLM) is an AI model trained on very large amounts of text to predict the next word in a sequence, which lets it answer questions, summarise and draft in ordinary language.
- Legal AI
- Legal AI is software that uses artificial intelligence, usually large language models, to help lawyers research, review, draft and organise legal work.
- Legal professional privilege
- Legal professional privilege is a client's right to withhold certain confidential communications with their lawyers from disclosure, made up of legal advice privilege and litigation privilege.
M
- Matter workspace
- A matter workspace is a single place holding everything for one client matter, such as its documents, drafts, AI outputs, risks and comments, with access limited to the people working on it.
- Model training on client data
- Model training on client data is an AI provider using the prompts, documents or responses a firm sends it to train or improve its AI models.
P
- Playbook
- A playbook is a firm's written standard for reviewing a type of document: what to look for, what to flag, what position the firm takes and how to report the result.
- Precedent library
- A precedent library is a firm's collection of approved template documents and clauses that lawyers use as the starting point for new drafting.
- Prompt injection
- Prompt injection is an attack in which text written as instructions is placed in an AI system's input, so that the model follows those instructions instead of, or as well as, the user's.
R
- Redlining
- Redlining is marking proposed changes to a draft so the other side can see each insertion and deletion, usually with tracked changes in Microsoft Word.
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique in which an AI system first searches a set of documents for relevant passages and then gives those passages to a language model to answer from.
S
- Semantic search
- Semantic search finds passages by meaning rather than by exact words, so a search for termination on insolvency can find a clause that refers to administration or winding up instead.
- Shadow AI
- Shadow AI is the use of AI tools for work without the firm's knowledge or approval, typically free consumer chatbots used through a personal account.
- Statement of truth
- A statement of truth is a signed declaration in a court document that the facts stated in it are believed to be true, made in the knowledge that a false statement can lead to proceedings for contempt of court.
- Supervision of AI-assisted work
- Supervision of AI-assisted work is a supervising solicitor's duty to check work produced with the help of AI tools, as they would check any other work done under their supervision.
Z
- Zero data retention (ZDR)
- Zero data retention (ZDR) is an arrangement under which an AI provider does not store the prompts sent to its models or the responses returned, beyond what is needed to process each request.
This glossary is general information, not legal advice. Each entry shows the date it was last updated or reviewed.