Closed matters and archived files
Can a law firm sell closed matter files to AI? Only what clients release
Updated
A closed file is still the former client's confidential information, so the firm cannot license it on its own say. What it can offer is the work it authored for itself, or material a client has agreed to release.
Short answer on closed files
No, not on the firm's own say: the SRA's rules keep a former client's affairs confidential unless the law permits disclosure or the client consents, and the SRA's 2026 warning notice says client data is not to train AI models except where explicitly authorised. What a firm can sell is the drafting and procedures it wrote itself, and the firm as a business.
Source: SRA rules and copyright law on client information and AI training
Closing the matter does not end the duty
The SRA's guidance says confidentiality covers a client's affairs whatever the source of the information, and continues after the retainer ends and even after the client dies, when the right passes to the personal representatives.
Source: SRA, confidentiality of client information
It is wider than not passing a file on. The same guidance describes it as a duty not to use the information, or let others use it, without the client's or former client's consent, except for that client's benefit. Licensing an archive to train a model is a use for the firm's benefit.
Source: SRA, confidentiality of client information
In the US, Model Rule 1.6(a) bars a lawyer from revealing information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized to carry out the representation, or one of the rule's exceptions applies.
Source: ABA Model Rule 1.6
The ABA's first opinion on generative AI, reported in July 2024, holds a lawyer using these tools to the same duty, and notes that other model rules extend similar protection to former clients' information.
Privilege belongs to the client
The SRA separates confidentiality from legal professional privilege. Communications between lawyer and client for giving legal advice are privileged, only the client can waive that privilege, not the firm, and privileged information cannot be disclosed. The advice correspondence in a closed file is the part no firm can license.
What the SRA says about client data and AI training
Its risk outlook on AI in the legal market names confidential data being revealed when it is transferred to an AI provider for training as a particular threat. Among its suggestions is synthetic data that follows the patterns of a firm's client data without their exact information.
Source: SRA risk outlook, AI in the legal market
Its warning notice on the misuse of AI, published on 17 August 2026, says solicitors should satisfy themselves that client data is not used to train AI models except where explicitly authorised and appropriate to do so.
Source: SRA rules and copyright law on client information and AI training
What a firm may consider offering instead
- Precedents, templates and clause banks the firm drafted for its own use, checked for any client's names or facts before they are scoped.
- The firm's own procedures: file-opening checklists, review workflows and compliance processes it wrote to run the practice.
- A matter a client has agreed in writing to release, on the terms that client sets, once counsel has confirmed nothing privileged is in it.
Who says it takes legal records
Mercor's data page lists Legal among its target industries, naming contracts, case files and discovery docs, and says its platform extracts and de-identifies the data into an asset. Removing names is the buyer's step after the firm has decided what may leave; it does not settle the duty above.
Source: Law firm data buyers
micro1's legal category is the firm's own working material, its policies, contract workflows and review processes, rather than client files. FileYield's list includes court filings and legal briefs, and its page says it does not remove personal data itself, so that work would fall to the firm.
Source: Law firm data buyers
What a buyer pays for the firm's own work
micro1 asks for established companies with 30 or more full-time employees and says its payments typically range from $150K to over $2M, paid within 30 days of acceptance, for material such as templates, process documentation and knowledge bases.
What the firm itself is worth to a buyer
Law firms are being bought whole. Carta, the private capital software company, announced that it had acquired Avantia Law and renamed it Carta Law. Knights announced it would acquire Moore Barlow's commercial and private wealth business, bringing more than 160 legal professionals, with completion expected on 1 November 2026. Field Seymour Parkes, a Reading firm of about £15m in annual revenue and 85 qualified professionals, joined the investor-backed Lawfront group.
Source: Who has bought UK law firms
None of the three announcements publishes the price paid, so the page gives none. A firm weighing a sale against a data licence is comparing two different deals: a licence keeps the firm and its archive, a sale moves both.
A note to pass to the senior partner
"Our closed files can't be sold to AI companies without each client's consent, but our own precedents and procedures can be licensed, and consolidators are buying firms like ours. Worth a call to see which applies?"
Which of the three routes is yours
- A practising firm: it licenses the precedents and procedures it wrote for itself, keeps owning them, and leaves client matters out.
- A firm that has closed or is being wound up: the partners, an administrator or a trustee deal with its own work product, and the matter files remain former clients' files under the same duty.
- An adviser to law firms, such as a practice consultant or a legal IT provider: you introduce the firm and it decides, with its counsel, what is in scope.
Once counsel has decided what may leave the firm, describe what you hold and which of the three you are; see also what the practice software terms say and how long the files must be kept.