Kaufman Ops

AI settings for a small law firm in Alaska

Checked against the source documents on October 26, 2026

Alaska Ethics Opinion 2025-1 puts it on the lawyer to check a provider's rules on data retention, data sharing and self-learning from inputs. The settings that answer that are on the main checklist. This page says which ones Alaska points at, and why.

What Alaska has said

Alaska Bar Association Ethics Committee (adopted by the Board of Governors): Ethics Opinion 2025-1, Generative Artificial Intelligence & The Practice of Law, 2025-04-23.

  1. Confidentiality. Before entering client confidences into a GAI tool, review its data retention, sharing and self-learning policies; anonymize inputs if the tool does not protect them (ARPC 1.6, Question 3).
  2. Competence. Understand the tool's capabilities, limitations and terms before use; keep current on benefits and risks; the duty is ongoing and not delegable (ARPC 1.1, Question 1).
  3. Supervision. Managers should make reasonable efforts at firm-wide compliance, including GAI policies; supervisors must understand GAI enough to supervise; review GAI output as a nonlawyer's work and do not delegate legal judgment (ARPC 5.1, 5.3, Question 6).
  4. Fees. Fees must be reasonable for work actually done; no billing for time saved or double billing; GAI built into research platforms is overhead; tool costs may be passed on only with advance disclosure of liability and computation; learning a tool is generally not billable (ARPC 1.5, Questions 4 and 5).
  5. Disclosure. Disclose GAI use if the client asks and consider proactive disclosure based on client expectations, cost and sensitivity, ideally in the engagement letter; check court rules or orders requiring disclosure (ARPC 1.2, 1.4).
  6. Verification. Verify output, including the accuracy of citations and soundness of reasoning, before relying on it; GAI has produced fake court decisions cited in briefs and lawyers have been sanctioned (ARPC 1.3, 3.1, 3.3, 8.4).

The line about the tool itself. Lawyer must review the provider's policies on data retention, data sharing and self-learning from user inputs, consider whether the provider is reputable and offers robust security, including prohibitions on retaining data, sharing with third parties and learning from inputs. (Question 3 short answer, p. 1; ARPC 1.6 discussion, p. 6)

One line from it: "Lawyers are ultimately responsible for their own work product" (ARPC 5.3 discussion, p. 8 (page approximate)).

The settings that answer it

  1. Use the business plan, not a personal one. On Claude Pro, Claude Max and ChatGPT Plus, training on chats is each user's own setting. On Claude Team, ChatGPT Business and Microsoft 365 Copilot with a work sign-in, business data is not used for training by default. On the checklist
  2. Turn off the training and feedback exceptions an admin can still turn off (Claude feedback, ChatGPT personal accounts that are still in use). On the checklist
  3. Set retention on purpose instead of taking the default. On the checklist
  4. Turn on single sign-on so a lawyer who leaves loses access the same day. On the checklist
  5. Decide on connectors, apps and agents before staff add them. On the checklist
  6. Pick a rule on memory, and teach temporary or incognito chats for one-off matter questions. On the checklist
  7. Put the vendor's written terms on training, retention, subprocessors and breach notice in the file. On the checklist
  8. Write the one-page staff instruction and a note for each new hire. On the checklist
  9. Keep a verification step before anything is filed. That is a procedure, not a setting, and no vendor sells it. On the checklist
  10. Decide what the engagement letter says about AI use and billing. That is yours to write; I only flag that the opinion raises it. On the checklist

Rules around it

Technology competence: Yes. Alaska Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.1, Comment [6] (benefits and risks of relevant technology), effective 2017-10-15 (per LexisNexis state survey and.

What this page is not

This is a tech settings page, not legal advice. The state document above is the ethics half and it is yours to read and decide on. I am not a lawyer. I link the source so you can check me.

Send me one screenshot

Crop out client names, send me a screenshot of your Claude, ChatGPT or Microsoft 365 admin settings page, and I'll write back what I'd change. Free. I never need a login.

If you want this kept current for your firm, that is the monthly desk: I watch these settings as the vendors change them and as your state changes its guidance, answer staff questions in writing, usually within one business day, and write up setup notes for each new hire. $500 a month, cancel any month.

Email [email protected]

Who wrote this

Nick Kaufman

I'm Nick Kaufman. I've spent six years in customer-facing technical support for SaaS, payments and CRM software, including three years at Tier 2 on a CRM built for financial advisors, whose firms work under SEC and FINRA rules. I'm not a lawyer and I don't give legal advice. I set up software so it does what the people responsible for it decided it should do.

Other states: the full list.