AI for family lawyers in Australia: where it helps, the tools, and the new court rules

Where AI helps in a family law practice

Property matters bring bank, superannuation and tax records. Parenting matters bring a history of events, school and medical information, and often safety concerns. Clients ring often, and many calls run long. Most of the reading, summarising and writing up is work AI can speed up. The advice, the strategy and every judgement about a child's safety stay with the lawyer.

If you want to see the call note job first, our free attendance note generator turns a sample call into a note with no sign-up, and the law firm file note compliance checklist checks your current notes against the points that matter.

Where CallNote fits, and who it is not for

CallNote does one job in that table: notes from client calls. It takes a transcript that already exists (from Aircall, Dialpad or Microsoft Teams, or pasted, uploaded or forwarded by email) and turns it into an attendance note in your firm's own format. There is no built-in family law template. You paste one of your own past attendance notes and CallNote builds a template from your headings, order and shorthand, or you use the general or chronological template. You review the note, then publish it, and it is sealed with an audit trail so later changes show as amendments.

It is not for you if you want help with intake, financial disclosure, drafting or research, because it does none of those. It never records calls, so if your phone system cannot produce a transcript you would upload or paste one, or dictate your own recap as a voice memo after the call. It does not create time entries. It publishes to Clio (on the linked Clio contact) and has no connection to LEAP, Smokeball or Actionstep, where the route is copy and paste or PDF. See real CallNote output before deciding.

The jobs in detail

Intake

Online intake is a common starting point. Settify, an intake system built for family law and estate planning firms, has clients enter their information at their own pace before the first meeting and sends it into practice management systems. Settify publishes its pricing: for family law, an A$129 licence fee and A$129 per billable lead (a client who completes the full intake), plus GST, invoiced monthly. Its website describes structured intake and a Separation Pathway for clients. It does not describe itself as an AI product.

Whatever tool you use, a lawyer reads the safety screening answers before anything else happens on the file.

Financial disclosure and bank statements

Property work involves the most reading. Smokeball lists bank statement analysis and legal chronology building among Archie's features, and a general assistant on a business plan can summarise a run of statements quickly. Check every total yourself before it goes into a letter or a balance sheet, and remember that documents produced by the other party under disclosure or subpoena carry their own limits on use (covered below).

Drafting

AI writes a decent first draft from a good precedent. In family law the risk is tone as much as accuracy. A letter that is fine in a commercial dispute can escalate a parenting matter. Read every draft as the other party and the judge will read it. AI must not write the content of affidavits, which have to be the witness's own evidence in their own words (see the practice direction below).

Client calls

Family law clients are often distressed, and calls can run long and cover a lot of ground at once: a handover that went badly, a new partner, school fees, a settlement offer, and a question about costs. The things that matter most later are the instructions, the advice, what the client was told about costs and anything about safety. Our guide to file notes for family law matters covers what to record, and costs disclosure file notes covers the costs conversations.

A note drafted from a transcript lets the lawyer focus on the client during the call. It needs careful review: check that instructions are recorded exactly as given, that the note does not soften or sharpen what the client said, and that safety information is accurate and stored where only the right people can see it. If you would need to record calls to get a transcript, check your state's consent rules first in is it legal to record phone calls in Australia?

Research

The Family Law Act has changed a lot in recent years, so a general chatbot can state the law as it used to be. A research product that answers from current Australian law is safer. LexisNexis says Lexis+ with Protégé answers from Australian primary law and commentary, links every answer to its sources and checks citations against CaseBase. You still read the authority before relying on it.

Best AI for family law in Australia: the options compared

There is no single best AI for family lawyers. Pick the tool for the job that costs you the most time. The table lists tools we checked on each vendor's own website in October 2026. Prices appear only where the vendor publishes them.

Sources: Settify pricing, LEAP legal AI, Smokeball Archie, Lexis+ with Protégé and Claude pricing.

Your clients may also come across amica, an online service developed by National Legal Aid for separating couples to make parenting and property arrangements themselves. Its website says its artificial intelligence was built to consider the matters relevant to working out what is fair, such as the length of the relationship, contributions, care of children, earnings and future needs. It is designed for amicable couples, and its site links to family violence help. A client may have tried it before calling you.

The FCFCOA practice direction on AI (29 May 2026)

On 29 May 2026 the Chief Justice issued the FCFCOA Practice Direction: Use of Artificial Intelligence (PD-AI). It applies to all proceedings in Division 1 and Division 2 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, and to lawyers, litigants, experts and other court users. It also applies whether or not a product calls itself AI: paragraph 1.6 says the obligations apply to AI embedded in drafting tools, search, transcription and document management systems. The points that matter most for a family law practice:

• Safety (paragraph 3.3(e)). Court users must not use AI if there is a risk it will compromise the safety of another court user or a child. The court's examples include entering information into a tool where confidentiality is not assured and which, if disclosed, could affect someone's safety, such as a protected residential address or medical records.
• Verify everything (paragraphs 4.5 to 4.7). Output must be fact-checked and proof-read by a person, and every case, statute, textbook or article must be checked to exist and say what is claimed. The court names AustLII and the Federal Register of Legislation as reliable sources, and says a tool is not reliable just because it is paid or closed.
• Affidavits (paragraph 4.9). The content of an affidavit must be based on the witness's own knowledge, experience or opinion, expressed in their own words.
• Experts (paragraph 4.10). Lawyers engaging a private expert must give them a copy of the practice direction and make sure the expert certifies that it has been read.
• Disclosure (paragraph 4.11). Apart from experts, there is no requirement to disclose AI use unless asked, but the person responsible must be able to explain whether AI was used, which tool, and how the output was checked.
• Family violence and litigation abuse (paragraph 4.20). AI must not be used in a way that perpetrates family violence as defined in s 4AB of the Family Law Act, or litigation abuse.
• Publication (paragraph 5.2). The court points out that it is an indictable offence under Part XIVB of the Family Law Act to communicate to the public an account of proceedings that identifies a party, witness or child. Information entered into a GenAI tool could become public.
• Settings (paragraph 5.4). Court users must turn off chat history and web search in GenAI chatbots where that option exists, and must not put confidential or sensitive information into a public GenAI tool.
• Prohibited material (paragraph 5.5). Material obtained through a court order for production, disclosure, discovery or subpoena, or under a suppression or non-publication order, must not go into any GenAI tool unless it stays in a closed environment with enforceable confidentiality restrictions on the supplier, is not used to train any model, and is used only for that proceeding.

Paragraph 4.14 is a practical one: a party with an AI tool suited to a task, such as drafting a joint chronology, should offer to do it where the other side would have to do it by hand. Read the full practice direction on the court's website.

Using AI carefully on matters involving family violence

Family violence changes how every tool on the file is used. A few habits help keep clients and children safe:

• Keep protected addresses, refuge details, school details and the child's medical information out of any tool the firm has not approved, and think hard before putting them into one it has.
• Do not send AI-generated summaries or notes to a client's email or phone without checking it is safe to do so. A former partner may have access to their devices or accounts.
• Check that AI drafts do not repeat allegations in stronger or weaker words than the client used. The words matter in these matters.
• Restrict who in the firm can see notes that contain safety information. In CallNote, members see only their own notes and owners and admins see the whole firm, so set roles to match.
• Never let an AI tool screen for risk. A lawyer reads the intake and the notes.

Claude, ChatGPT and other AI tools for family lawyers

General assistants are useful for summarising, restructuring and first drafts, but the plan matters. Anthropic's pricing page says Claude Team and Enterprise plans do not train models on your content by default, and the FCFCOA practice direction tells court users to check the terms of service of each tool, noting that data practices differ between tiers of the same system (paragraph 4.18). The OAIC recommends, as a matter of best practice, that organisations do not enter personal information, particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools.

The practical rule: one approved business tool per job, set up by the firm, named in your AI policy, and no personal accounts on client material. Our law firm AI policy template has wording you can adapt, and AI note takers and legal professional privilege covers the privilege risk.

Checklist before you use AI on a family law file

• The tool is on a business plan the firm controls, with its data terms read and recorded.
• You know where data is stored and processed, how long it is kept, and whether it is used for training.
• Chat history and web search are off where the tool allows it (PD-AI paragraph 5.4).
• Disclosure, discovery, subpoena and suppressed material stays out unless the tool meets PD-AI paragraph 5.5.
• Protected addresses and safety information are kept out of any unapproved tool.
• Every fact, total and citation is checked by a person against the source.
• No AI-written content goes into an affidavit.
• Experts you engage have the practice direction and have certified they read it.
• Every AI-drafted attendance note is reviewed by the lawyer who took the call before it goes on the file.
• Someone in the firm can explain, if the court asks, which tool was used and how its output was checked.

If client calls are the job eating your week, try CallNote free for 14 days with no card and compare its note with the one you wrote. For the wider picture of AI in small firms, see can lawyers use AI for file notes? and the law firm overview.

Common questions