NotebookLM for lawyers: what reads client documents without uploading them

NotebookLM, renamed Gemini Notebook in July 2026, reads only what you upload to it, and an upload is a copy of your client's document kept in Google's cloud. If that copy is the problem, the answer is an app whose AI runs on your own computer: the document stays in a folder on your laptop, and the summary is written there too. This page sets out what NotebookLM does with a document, why that matters for confidential work, and which tools read documents on the machine instead.

What NotebookLM does with your documents

Google's help pages say three things that matter to a lawyer:

A source is a copy. "A source is a copy or auto-synced version of the source document you import or upload to the app." It accepts Word, PDF, text, Markdown, CSV and PowerPoint files, up to 500,000 words or 200 MB each, and files from Google Drive stay in sync with the original.
Training, and the exception. Your data is not used to train the product unless you send feedback. When you send feedback, Google may review the full context of that interaction, uploads included.
The account decides the terms. With a Google Workspace or Workspace for Education account, uploads, questions and answers are not reviewed by people. With a personal account, Google's Terms of Service apply.

Since the rename, Google also gives every notebook "a secure cloud computer" that runs code over your sources. The model that reads your contract runs on Google's side, not yours.

None of this makes NotebookLM careless. It means the question you have to answer is where a copy of the client's document lives, under which terms, and who could read it.

Why that matters for privilege

Uploading a document to a cloud service hands a copy to a third party. Whether that is acceptable depends on your jurisdiction's rules, the service's terms and what your client agreed to. The answers differ from bar to bar, so read your own bar's guidance on generative AI.

As one example of how concrete that guidance gets: the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar (OAB) recommends that a lawyer choose an AI system whose provider protects what is put into it and allows that data not to be used for training; check in the privacy policy what the system shares and why; review every output before it reaches a court; and, before using AI on a client's matter, record the purpose, the risks and the security measures in a written document the client signs.

With a tool that runs on your own computer, the document stays on that computer: no provider receives it, and nothing is trained on it. What you tell your client and how you check the AI's work are still yours to decide.

On-device options compared

Tool	Where the AI runs	Offline	Price	Systems
NotebookLM (Gemini Notebook)	Google's cloud	No: a web service	No plan needed; higher limits with a Google AI plan	A web browser
ThinkE	Your computer	Yes, once installed	$99 once, with a year of updates	Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows
AnythingLLM Desktop	Your computer, by default	Its page makes no offline claim	Free	macOS, Windows and Linux
Elephas	Documents indexed on your Mac; AI in the cloud or on the Mac	With local models, its FAQ says	From $19 a month	Mac (macOS 13 or later); iPhone and iPad on higher plans

What each vendor says about itself is linked under Sources. Read their current pages before you decide; prices and plans change.

ThinkE is a notes and documents app with the AI built in. It opens an ordinary folder of Markdown notes, PDFs and Word documents, the same folder Obsidian opens, and nothing is imported to a server. It goes online to download its AI models, fetch the web pages you choose to save, check for updates, confirm your licence and send crash reports you can turn off, never with your notes or documents.

Summarize a contract offline, step by step

Download ThinkE for a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) or a Windows PC. The AI needs 8 GB of memory; more memory or a graphics card makes it answer faster.
Open it once while online: it downloads its AI models. After that, turn Wi-Fi off if you want to see for yourself that the rest needs no connection.
Open the folder where you keep your documents, and put the contract, PDF or Word, in the client's folder.
Open the contract and choose Summarise from its … menu. The summary is written into the document's notes, a .note.md file beside it that is yours like any other file.
For a clause that needs a second reading, select it and choose Explain: two or three plain sentences that read the paragraph around it too. For a specific question, type it under Ask.
Check the summary against the contract before you rely on it. The AI makes mistakes. A summary tells you where to read; reading the contract is still your job.

For a client's folders, Settings ▸ Privacy ▸ Keep client folders apart makes each subfolder of, say, Clients/ its own client: the list of related documents shows only that client's things.

ThinkE costs $99 once, with a year of updates, and keeps working as it is after that year. Try it free for 7 days with no card; you have 30 days to ask for your money back.

Download

Sources

Read on October 13, 2026.