Part 3 of 3
Part 3 of Clean, confidential or compelled. The upload rule, the register, and Jordan's memo.
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A NSW privacy and litigation solicitor specialising in restricted evidence.
The AI question
This is the check that every prompt on this site refers to. Do it before intake, not after.
- Compelled: never, as this site's policy. Not a redacted version, not a summary you typed, not "just the dates": the obligation covers information from the documents, not only the pages. (The NSW Supreme Court's practice note sets conditions rather than a ban; our rule is stricter.)
- Confidential: a redacted working copy only, after reading the service's data controls and deciding that the remaining content can safely leave your machine. Third-party personal details come out first.
- Privileged / without prejudice: yours: not by default, and only after assessing whether the upload could be treated as inconsistent with keeping it confidential; if you must, prefer a tool that keeps data on your own device. Theirs: never.
- Clean: only after the permission check: no continuing confidence or order attaches, other people's personal information is redacted, and you have read the service's privacy and training settings and turned off anything that keeps or learns from your uploads. Settings alone do not make an upload lawful.
The file-naming guide gives the folder for this: 00 Restricted - do not upload or send, with the actual restriction recorded inside it. The folder name is a fence, not a legal finding. The document safety guide covers making a clean working copy without altering the original.
The register: source and restriction in the same row
An evidence register that records what a document says but not how you got it will let you down at exactly the wrong moment. Add two columns and fill them the day the document arrives.
Fictional register extract — Jordan Lee, matter with Meridian Builders
DocumentHow obtainedBin and permitted use
Services agreement, 2 Feb 2025Signed copy in Jordan's own filesClean. Contains confidentiality clause 14, so contents are confidential. Use in proceeding; no publication.
Email, Meridian to Jordan, 20 Mar 2026Received directly by emailClean. Use freely in the proceeding.
Internal memo, 11 Mar 2026Meridian's discovery list, item 47Compelled. This proceeding only. No AI. No complaint or other use without leave.
Letter, Jordan's solicitor advice, 4 Apr 2026Received from own solicitorPrivileged. Own machine only. Not in court book.
Meridian's WP offer, 9 Jul 2026Received directly, headed without prejudiceWithout prejudice. Separate folder. Not for filing except where an exception applies (costs is one), and only with advice.
Bank statements, Mar–Jun 2026Downloaded from Jordan's own bankClean. Contains Jordan's personal financial detail; redact account numbers before any upload.
Use the same labels in filenames. A prefix such as R_ or a [RESTRICTED] tag on the file, matching the register, means the warning travels with the document even when someone finds it through search rather than through the folder.
From Jordan's case file
Fictional example: The memo Jordan could not use, and the email he could
Meridian's discovery ran to about three hundred pages. Item 47 was an internal memo suggesting the company had billed Jordan for a month after it had decided to end the agreement. Jordan's first instinct was to send it to the industry ombudsman that afternoon.
He stopped, because the memo had reached him through discovery. He put it in the restricted folder, entered it in the register as compelled, and wrote "not without leave" in the permitted-use column.
Then he went back through his own inbox. On 20 March, Meridian had emailed him the termination notice. On 3 April, it had emailed an invoice for April. Both had come to him directly. Both were clean. Together they showed the same thing the memo showed, without the memo.
His complaint to the ombudsman used the two emails and nothing else. It did not mention that a memo existed. In the proceeding itself, where the memo was produced, he was free to rely on it and did.
The rule cost him nothing except an afternoon's patience. Breaking it would have handed Meridian a complaint of its own.
Common mistakes
- Sorting by content. "It is only an invoice" says nothing about whether it is locked. Origin decides.
- Summarising compelled material into an AI tool on the theory that a summary is not the document. Information from the document is covered, not just the pages.
- Using discovered material in a complaint or a second proceeding without leave, because it seemed obviously relevant. Relevance is why you would apply for leave. It is not leave.
- Filing confidential third-party information unredacted and without asking the registry how the court handles it.
- Reading on when the other side's advice arrives by mistake.
- Not recording the source at the time. Six months later you will not remember whether the PDF came from your inbox or the discovery bundle.
- Treating a CONFIDENTIAL or PRIVILEGED heading as the rule. The heading is a claim. Check what actually attaches, and if unsure treat it as if it does.
Checklist
- Every document sorted into a bin by how it reached you
- Doubtful material treated as locked until advice says otherwise
- Register has a "how obtained" column and a "bin and permitted use" column, filled on arrival
- Restricted folder exists, with the actual restriction recorded inside it
- Restricted files carry a prefix or tag that matches the register
- Compelled material has never entered an AI tool, a complaint, a post or another proceeding
- Confidential material redacted before it goes anywhere beyond the proceeding
- Own advice and without-prejudice material in their own folder, on your own machine
- New claims and complaints assembled from clean material only
- Any needed use of locked material handled by an application for leave, not a judgment call