AI for Saskatchewan Lawyers: The Law Society of Saskatchewan's Generative AI Guidelines

The Law Society of Saskatchewan did not ban generative AI - it published guidelines for using it responsibly. If you practise in Saskatchewan and you have used ChatGPT to summarize a file or draft a letter, the question worth asking is not whether AI is allowed, but whether the tool you used kept your client's information confidential.

This guide covers what the Law Society of Saskatchewan actually says, the two Code duties that govern AI use, and how a Canadian-hosted tool changes the risk picture.

What the Saskatchewan AI guidelines say

The Law Society of Saskatchewan's "Guidelines for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law" (updated February 2024) were adapted for Saskatchewan with input from legal-ethics scholar Professor Amy Salyzyn, drawing on work by the California State Bar. The central message matches every other Canadian regulator: AI does not change your duties - the lawyer stays responsible.

The practical points, paraphrased:

• Keep learning (competence). Lawyers should continuously learn about AI and understand the benefits and risks of any tool they use. Because AI output can be inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated, pick tools suited to the task - a general tool like ChatGPT was not built for legal research.
• Protect confidentiality. Because some AI products reuse inputs to train models or share them with third parties, do not enter confidential or privileged client information into a tool that lacks adequate confidentiality and security protections.
• Critically review inputs and outputs. Competence requires more than catching false AI output - it requires applying independent legal reasoning to both what you put in and what you get back.
• Oversight and non-delegation. Treat an AI tool like a non-lawyer assistant: supervise and review its output, and keep full professional responsibility. Tasks that require professional judgment cannot be handed to the tool.
• Be transparent with clients. In some circumstances, communicating effectively with a client may require telling them how generative AI is being used in their matter.

The two Code duties that govern AI use

Confidentiality - Code rule 3.3-1. You must hold all information about a client's business and affairs in strict confidence. A consumer AI tool that transmits your prompt to US servers, may retain it, and may train on it is in direct tension with that duty the moment the prompt contains confidential information.

Technological competence - rule 3.1-2, commentary [4A]-[4B]. The competence duty is expanded by commentary making clear that a competent lawyer should understand and be able to use technology relevant to their practice, and understand its benefits and risks - expressly linking back to the confidentiality duty in section 3.3.

The real problem: where your data goes

The vulnerability in consumer AI tools is the hosting. US-based services process data on American servers, exposed to the US CLOUD Act, which can compel an American company to produce data regardless of where the user sits. For privileged client material, that is a confidentiality exposure no consent form fully resolves.

How Surface is built for this

Surface is designed so the tool itself does not put your Code duties at risk:

• All data stays in Canada - documents, embeddings, and storage on Canadian servers (AWS Montreal, ca-central-1).
• No training on your data. Your documents are never used to train AI models.
• Answers cite their source, so you can critically review output against the file - exactly the review the guidelines require.
• Audit logs and per-matter isolation at the database level.
• PIPEDA-aligned handling, with a Data Processing Agreement available on request.

On the wording: Surface is not "Law Society of Saskatchewan compliant" - no software is, because the Law Society regulates lawyers, not tools. Surface is built to help you meet the confidentiality and competence duties the Code of Professional Conduct already puts on you.

Start a free 14-day trial - no credit card required.

See the national picture in our AI compliance by province guide, or compare with Alberta's Generative AI Playbook.