Can Victorian lawyers use AI to draft wills and letters of demand?

I build AI-assisted intake and drafting tools for law firms, so I get this question a lot, usually phrased as "am I allowed to?" The honest answer is that the regulators haven't banned anything. They've drawn a few clear lines, and if you stay inside them, AI is just another tool you're responsible for.

What the regulator actually said

In December 2024 the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner issued a joint statement with the Law Society of NSW and the Legal Practice Board of WA. The parts that matter for a wills or debt-recovery practice:

• Confidentiality. Lawyers "cannot safely enter confidential, sensitive or privileged client information into public AI chatbots/copilots (like ChatGPT)".
• Your judgment, not the tool's. Lawyers "cannot rely on the output of an AI tool as a substitute for their own assessment". The NSW version adds that a lawyer using AI to prepare documents must be able and qualified to personally verify what they contain.
• Fair costs. Charge fairly for work that AI sped up.
• Policies and transparency. Firms should have risk-based policies and be transparent about use.

What the LIV adds

The LIV's Ethical and Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence guidelines go a step further on the client relationship:

• Never enter confidential client information into an open-source or commercial AI system without client consent.
• Disclose the use of AI to your client.
• Make sure the client is charged fairly.

A checklist for a small firm

• No public chatbots for client matters. Put it in writing for staff, including the paralegal who "just uses it to tidy the wording".
• Know where the data goes. Ask any vendor where client data is stored, who can see it, and whether it's used to train models. Get the answer in writing.
• Keep the drafting anchored to your precedent. For wills, the safest pattern is that your approved clauses do the legal work and the software only places the client's facts into them. A draft generated from scratch is much harder to verify line by line.
• A lawyer approves everything. Nothing goes to a client or a debtor until a practitioner has reviewed it. Build that into the workflow so it can't be skipped.
• Tell the client. One sentence in the engagement letter does it. For example: "We use secure software, including AI tools, to help collect your instructions and prepare a first draft. A lawyer reviews and approves every document."
• Price for the outcome. A fixed fee for a lawyer-reviewed will stays fair when intake gets faster. Billing time you didn't spend doesn't.
• Write a one-page policy. Which tools are approved, what they're used for, who checks the output.

Where AI genuinely helps in a wills practice

The useful jobs are the boring ones. Turning a client's rambling voice note about "the kids and the unit in Reservoir" into structured fields. Translating answers from Vietnamese or Greek into English for the lawyer. Spotting that the client said the home is held as joint tenants, so it won't pass under the will. Flagging that a binding super nomination may have lapsed. None of that replaces advice. It just means the lawyer starts the review with the facts in order and the risks highlighted.

The jobs to keep away from AI are judgment calls: whether the client has capacity, whether someone is influencing them, and what they should do about a blended family. That's the work clients are paying a lawyer for.