AI Meeting Assistant for Legal Teams: How to Capture Details Without Compromising Privilege

Every attorney knows this tension: the choice between capturing critical details and being fully present in the conversation. One litigator recently put it simply:

"I can't both take notes and participate on the call. That doesn't work well."

For legal professionals, the stakes are higher than in most industries. Client conversations contain privileged information, litigation strategy, and details that could become discoverable in court. The wrong AI tool could expose your firm to malpractice claims, waive attorney-client privilege, or create records that opposing counsel will demand in discovery.

Fellow is the secure AI meeting assistant built for exactly this. It captures conversations across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and even in-person meetings while giving legal teams complete control over what gets recorded, who can access it, and when it gets deleted.

SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant, and Fellow never trains on your data. Already losing critical details in client meetings? Try Fellow today and see how it captures conversations accurately and securely →

Why do law professionals need an AI meeting assistant?

An AI meeting assistant for lawyers is a specialized tool that automatically records, transcribes, and organizes meeting content while maintaining the security and confidentiality standards legal practice demands. Unlike general-purpose transcription tools, AI meeting assistants designed for legal use provide granular controls over recording, storage, and deletion to address privilege and discovery concerns.

The legal profession is experiencing a fundamental shift in how attorneys document conversations. Manual note-taking creates inconsistent records, misses critical details, and forces attorneys to divide their attention during high-stakes discussions. As one corporate secretary noted about the quality of manually-produced meeting minutes:

"We've seen the quality of manual notes, and it's not always consistent. Not everyone knows how to take good minutes. We get bullet points, not even full sentences and not the proper context that you would want when a decision is being made."

AI meeting assistants solve this problem by capturing complete, accurate records while attorneys focus on advocacy, strategy, and client relationships. The efficiency gain is substantial: attorneys using AI capture far more detail than manual methods allow, enabling them to review exactly what was discussed months later down to the specific sentence and timestamp.

Why legal teams choose Fellow as their AI notetaker

Law firms adopt Fellow to solve challenges unique to legal practice. Unlike consumer transcription tools that may train AI models on your conversations or lack adequate security controls, Fellow was built with enterprise confidentiality requirements in mind.

Attorney-client privilege protection

The greatest concern for any law firm using AI meeting technology is preserving privilege. One attorney explained the constant tension:

"A lot of what we discuss can be very highly sensitive."

Fellow addresses this through multiple layers of protection.

First, Fellow never trains AI models on your meeting data. This is critical because competitors like Otter require enterprise-tier subscriptions (often 50+ seats minimum) to access the same protection.

Second, Fellow provides workspace-wide auto-deletion policies that can be set as aggressively as one day, ensuring recordings don't persist longer than necessary.

Discovery and data retention control

Litigation attorneys understand that every recorded conversation could become evidence. As one practitioner told us:

"We're a litigation group. Things become subject to discovery in a wide variety of contexts."

Fellow provides privacy controls that let firms manage this risk:

• Auto-deletion policies ranging from 1 day to custom timeframes, applied consistently across the entire workspace

• Recording policies that automatically prevent recording for meetings containing specific keywords (such as "court" or "opposing counsel") or involving certain attendees

• Redaction capabilities that permanently remove sensitive content from transcripts, recordings, and AI summaries

• Manual recording mode by default, so attorneys explicitly choose when to record rather than creating records automatically

Compliance with professional obligations

German firms operating under Section 203 of the Criminal Code face particularly stringent requirements around client data. As one tax advisor told us:

"Section 203 of our Criminal Code is super important, especially on my level, for everybody who is dealing with secret data."

Fellow's GDPR compliance, data residency options, and enterprise security certifications address these regulatory requirements.

For firms subject to law society guidelines, the distinction is clear:

"The law society is very clear that you can't use any models that are trained on any client calls, period, full stop," said one Fellow customer.

Fellow's architecture ensures compliance with these professional obligations.

If confidentiality concerns have prevented your firm from adopting an AI meeting notetaker, Fellow was built specifically to address those requirements. Start a 14-day free trial today →

What makes Fellow the best AI meeting assistant for legal teams?

Fellow stands apart from other AI meeting tools through features specifically designed for legal use cases.

Flexibility between bot and botless recording

Many AI notetakers can only join meetings as visible bots, which creates problems in some legal contexts.

One attorney explained:

"We don't want opposing counsel seeing a bot in court. For depositions, sensitive client meetings, and court appearances, visible AI presence is inappropriate."

Fellow's botless recording captures audio through your local computer without any visible participant joining the call. This enables discrete documentation for depositions (where permitted by law), client consultations where comfort is paramount, pre-retainer conversations, and situations where professional appearance matters.

If you prefer to have a visible bot on the call, Fellow gives you the flexibility to choose between both functionalities.

Cross-meeting intelligence with Ask Fellow

Legal matters span dozens or hundreds of meetings over months or years. Finding specific discussions across that history traditionally required reviewing individual recordings or relying on memory.

Ask Fellow lets attorneys query across all their meetings with natural language questions.

One firm using Fellow described the value:

"With all the meetings that we've had over the last year, it's nice to know which meetings discussed a specific topic."

This capability proves invaluable for deposition preparation, finding past commitments, tracking case developments over time, and reviewing client history before important calls.

Recording notifications

Fellow notifies meeting participants about recordings in two ways:

Prior to the meeting:

• If auto-record is enabled, participants see an indication in their Fellow calendar (via the My Week page)

• Google Calendar users with the Fellow extension also see the notification in their calendar

During the Meeting:

• The Fellow Note Taker bot joins the call and announces itself when it starts recording

• Participants can see the bot has joined the meeting in their participant list

Additional Options:

• If a participant doesn't consent to being recorded, the Note Taker can be removed from the call

• You can manually admit the Note Taker after all attendees have joined (rather than having it auto-join)

• Consider adding consent disclaimers to your meeting invitations as a best practice

These notifications help ensure compliance with recording consent requirements.

How legal teams use Fellow in practice

Law firms have adopted Fellow across diverse practice areas and use cases. We spoke with Fellow customers to understand their use cases and summarized them below:

Solo attorney efficiency

Solo practitioners and small firm attorneys often handle every aspect of client relationships without dedicated support staff. One solo attorney captured the core challenge:

"There's a certain level of detail, the level of things that I might forget if I didn't have it. You'll realize how much more detail you can actually capture."

Fellow enables solo attorneys to capture complete records of client consultations, stay present during negotiations rather than scribbling notes, review exact language used in important discussions, and generate follow-up emails based on meeting content.

Board meetings and corporate secretary work

Law firms serving as corporate secretaries for tech and life science clients use Fellow to produce professional AI meeting minutes, maintain minute books with consistent documentation, and service fractional general counsel arrangements with complete records.

Litigation documentation

Litigation teams use Fellow to capture detailed case discussions, document strategy sessions (with appropriate controls), maintain records of client communications for future reference, and prepare for depositions by reviewing past conversations.

Client meeting coverage

Fellow works across the platforms legal teams actually use:

• Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams for virtual meetings (most legal teams are Microsoft-based)

• In-person meetings via botless recording on desktop and mobile devices

• Slack huddles for quick internal discussions

Custom recap templates for legal workflows

Fellow allows firms to create custom AI note templates tailored to legal practice.

One firm described their custom template:

1. Case/client identifier and meeting date

2. High-level meeting summary

3. Attorney commitments ("I'm going to call opposing counsel, draft the motion...")

4. Client commitments ("I'm going to get you bank records, tax records...")

5. Important dates and deadlines

6. Follow-up email draft to client

This separation of attorney versus client action items ensures nothing falls through the cracks while creating clear accountability records.

How to set up Fellow for your law firm or legal team

Implementation success depends on configuring Fellow to match your firm's risk tolerance and workflow requirements.

1. Configure auto-deletion policies

Set workspace-wide deletion policies based on your firm's data retention requirements. Many firms opt for aggressive deletion, applying consistent rules across the entire workspace to address discovery concerns.

2. Create recording policies

Fellow's Enterprise-ready features allow rules-based recording control:

• Never record meetings with keywords like "court," "deposition," or "opposing counsel"

• Never record meetings with specific external attendees

• Always record standard client check-ins or internal team meetings

These guardrails prevent mistakes before they happen.

One firm described their goal:

"We wanted to avoid situations where people were going into a council meeting and we cannot have an AI notetaker showing up when we're in court."

3. Update retainer agreements

Disclose AI tool usage upfront in engagement letters. As one attorney advised:

"You want to put this in your retainer. It's got to be in there upfront saying, hey, look, we rely on technological tools, including Fellow as our secure AI meeting assistant and notetaker."

Surprisingly, client pushback is minimal. Firms report that despite expecting significant objections, the actual resistance is negligible:

"We had expected a good amount of pushback. I think the expectation was probably one in three clients would say no. We've actually only had like one or two in the last year."

4. Add custom vocabulary

Fellow allows adding custom vocabulary for proper spelling of firm names, client names, legal terms, case names, and opposing counsel names.

This ensures transcription accuracy for specialized terminology.

Compare Fellow vs. other AI meeting assistants

Fellow is best for legal teams that need enterprise-grade security without enterprise-tier pricing, granular control over what gets recorded and retained, and the flexibility to record across all meeting platforms including in-person conversations.

Frequently asked questions

What is an AI meeting assistant for lawyers?

An AI meeting assistant for lawyers is a tool that automatically records, transcribes, and organizes meeting content while maintaining the confidentiality and security standards legal practice requires. Unlike basic transcription services, AI meeting assistants designed for legal use provide enterprise security certifications (SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA compliance), granular controls over recording and deletion, and features like botless recording for sensitive situations. Fellow is an AI meeting notetaker built specifically for organizations that cannot compromise on data security.

Does using an AI meeting assistant waive attorney-client privilege?

Not if you choose the right tool and configure it properly. Privilege concerns arise when third-party vendors access privileged communications or use data to train AI models. Fellow never trains on customer meeting data, provides complete control over who can access recordings, and allows immediate deletion of recordings after processing. To maintain privilege, firms should use enterprise-grade tools with contractual data protection guarantees, configure auto-deletion policies to minimize data retention, disable recording during executive sessions or privileged strategy discussions, and obtain informed client consent before recording.

Can Fellow record depositions?

Fellow's botless recording mode can capture depositions where permitted by applicable law and with proper consent from all parties. This mode records audio through your computer without a visible bot joining the call, maintaining the professional appearance important in legal proceedings. Always verify compliance with your jurisdiction's recording consent requirements and court rules before recording any legal proceeding.

How does Fellow protect sensitive legal information from discovery?

Fellow provides multiple layers of protection against discovery concerns. Auto-deletion policies (configurable custom periods) ensure recordings don't persist indefinitely. Recording policies prevent automatic recording of sensitive meetings based on keywords or attendees. Redaction capabilities permanently remove content from transcripts and recordings. Manual recording mode means recordings only exist when explicitly enabled. These controls let firms balance documentation benefits against discovery risks.

Is Fellow secure for law firm use?

Fellow is SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant, and GDPR compliant. The platform stores data with enterprise-grade infrastructure, never trains AI models on customer data, and provides permission-based access aligned to organizational roles. These security credentials meet or exceed the requirements of major bar associations and law societies for technology use in legal practice. Fellow also offers 50+ integrations with tools like Microsoft 365, allowing secure export to SharePoint or OneDrive.

What if clients object to being recorded?

Client acceptance of AI recording is higher than most firms expect. Firms report that with clear disclosure and explanation of benefits (more accurate notes, better follow-up, reduced missed details), objections are rare. Key practices include verbal disclosure at the start of calls ("We use a system to make sure we don't miss anything. Do you mind if we use this tool?"), written disclosure in engagement letters, configurable notification messages explaining what happens to recordings, and the ability to disable recording instantly if clients prefer.

One firm noted they expected one in three clients to object but experienced only one or two objections in an entire year.

Stop choosing between participation and documentation

Every meeting without proper documentation is context your firm cannot search, decisions no one can reference, and commitments that disappear into memory. Legal practice demands both active engagement and detailed records.

Fellow gives your firm both: complete meeting capture with the security controls, deletion policies, and flexible recording options legal teams require. SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant, and Fellow never trains on your data.

Explore Fellow with a 14-day free trial (no credit card required) →