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An AI knowledge base for a law firm: who can see what?
Short answer
An AI knowledge base in a law firm points to an approved template or research note and the source of the answer, but it uses only material cleared for shared use and the files the person asking may access. A title with a client's name can also reveal information, so the assistant does not show it. At Syntalith the app costs from €3,000 net. At 300 questions a month of 15 minutes each, it pays back in 1.4 months.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net per application, fixed price before contract
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 4–10 weeks
- free prototype on your documents
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
Law firms and AI: statistics 2026
1.4 mo.
payback of a €3,000 app at 300 questions about templates and research notes a month: €2,618 of searching today, €399 with the app. Scenario.
48.8%
According to Eurostat (2025), 48.8% of EU enterprises that considered AI but did not use it named concerns about data protection and privacy.
25.1%
According to a Harvard Business School study (2023) of 758 consultants, tasks within the model's capabilities were done 25.1% faster with AI.
40.4%
According to Eurostat (2025), 40.4% of EU enterprises in professional, scientific and technical activities used AI.
49%
According to Anthropic (2024), combining contextual embeddings with BM25 search cut failed retrievals by 49%, and by 67% with reranking.
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Decide what the firm can share
Useful material may sit in files the person asking has no access to, and a similar topic gives no right to use it. Before you choose a search tool, settle which of the firm's work it wants to share more widely and who decides.
Shared library
templates and research notes
Cleared for shared use, with an owner who keeps them current.
Notes drawn from files
after approval
A version without client names or matter details, approved for wider use.
Client files
matter team only
They keep their restrictions, and the assistant does not show them to others.
Removing a name alone does not settle who may see the full content.
Handing a matter to another lawyer
The firm has approved an instruction for handing over matters: the person handing over names the folder with the current documents, describes the open tasks and gives a contact for questions. A lawyer asks the assistant what to prepare. A good answer points to the instruction and helps draft the note, while the lawyer adds the open tasks and the contact, because the instruction does not know them.
The archive may hold a similar note from another client's files. If the user has no access to them, the assistant shows no title, passage or quotation.
What a law firm knowledge base costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 300 questions × 15 min = 75 h (€2,618)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 15% of the time
- €393
- Model, 1 call per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €5.97
- Cost of one case
- €8.73 today, €1.33 with the system
- Saving
- €2,219 a month
Payback of €3,000
1.4 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 8,000 input tokens and 600 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
When someone leaves a matter team
- 01RemovalA test account loses access to a sample matter.
- 02Open chatThe same question in an open conversation returns no material.
- 03New sign-inAfter signing in again, the result is the same.
- 04HistoryThe firm decides whether earlier answers stay readable and exportable.
- 05TemplateAfter a template is withdrawn, the assistant does not present it as approved.
Removing access to a source does not delete copies someone has already downloaded outside the system. According to Eurostat (2025), 48.8% of EU enterprises that considered AI but did not use it named concerns about data protection and privacy, so this test is worth running before the first lawyer asks a question.
Check your existing document system first
The problem is finding the right file
a tidy library and permissions in the DMS
no new app
The DMS has its own assistant
assess the assistant in the current tool
vendor licence
Knowledge spread across several systems
an AI app that joins the sources with permissions
from €3,000
iManage describes Ask iManage as an assistant that searches the repository, answers with citations and respects permissions, and the user guide describes asking questions across the repository. These are vendor statements to check on the firm's own account. When you are choosing between training, assembling documents and a knowledge base, compare the AI scopes for law firms. The first scope is one library of approved material, described on the private ChatGPT for law firms page.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: the firm's knowledge in one place
We run the same count for your firm in the free analysis.
€2,618
a month for finding answers to 300 questions in documents
Payback: 1.4 mo.
Our assumptions are 15 minutes to find the right template and check where it comes from, and checking in 15% of the old time. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. Model cost: Claude Sonnet 5.5, about 6,000 + 500 tokens per answer from documents, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
See the full calculation →
