The Complete Guide to Using AI as a Legal Professional in Belgium in 2025

Belgian lawyers can no longer treat AI as a niche tech: business adoption nearly doubled - from 13.81% in 2023 to 24.71% in 2024 - and is expected to rise further in 2025, while key EU AI Act obligations began rolling out in February 2025, creating immediate compliance and client‑advice work (see ActLegal's Belgium briefing).

At the same time, PwC finds 76% of organisations are experimenting with AI but only 21% have fully scaled solutions, which means legal teams will increasingly own governance, data‑privacy, contract drafting, liability allocation, and vendor oversight as clients chase fast ROI. AI is already being used for classification, drafting and case‑law analysis in Belgian firms, so practical AI literacy is essential: short, targeted upskilling - like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work (15 weeks) - helps lawyers learn prompt design, risk-aware use, and workplace implementation so they can turn regulatory risk into a competitive asset.

Attribute	Information
Description	Gain practical AI skills for any workplace; learn AI tools, prompt writing, and apply AI across business functions
Length	15 Weeks
Courses included	AI at Work: Foundations; Writing AI Prompts; Job Based Practical AI Skills
Cost	$3,582 (early bird); $3,942 afterwards - paid in 18 monthly payments, first payment due at registration
Syllabus	AI Essentials for Work syllabus - Nucamp
Registration	Register for Nucamp AI Essentials for Work

These projects illustrate how tailored, phased implementations can deliver quick wins, build trust, and create momentum for scaling AI.

Belgium's AI strategy is deliberately federated and pragmatic: a national convergence plan (nine objectives, 70 action lines) coordinates with regional programmes so lawyers must read both federal guidance and regional rules, not just Brussels law; the European Commission's AI Watch summarises this multi‑level approach around three strategic pillars - boosting technological impact and a responsible data strategy, ensuring social and economic benefits via skills and public‑sector modernisation, and building ethical, resilient safeguards - and points to concrete regional spending and sandboxes to get innovations into the market.

In Flanders the AI action plan carries an annual envelope of about EUR 32 million (with money earmarked for companies, basic research and training), Wallonia runs DigitalWallonia4.ai with roughly EUR 18 million/year and the ARIAC project (EUR 32 million), while Brussels funds AI research via Innoviris (≈EUR 22 million since 2017); national measures include tax and R&D supports, open data (Belgium open data portal (data.gov.be)) and testing environments such as Sandbox Vlaanderen.

The strategy emphases - skills, a responsible data ecosystem, experimentation and trustworthy AI - mean legal teams will advise on procurement, data sharing, sandboxes and regulatory compliance; one stark policy detail driving that work: Belgium flags the energy cost of AI (servers may consume ~10% of global electrical energy by 2025), so sustainability and data‑localisation rules are part of the legal picture.

Read the full Belgium AI strategy via the European Commission AI Watch overview and the AI4Belgium implementation recommendations.

Item	Key facts
Strategic pillars	Tech impact & data strategy; social/economic benefits & skills; ethical, resilient society (AI Watch)
Flanders	Action plan ~EUR 32M/year (companies, research, training)
Wallonia	DigitalWallonia4.ai ~EUR 18M/year; ARIAC EUR 32M (2021–2026)
Brussels	Innoviris ~EUR 22M for AI research since 2017
National plan	9 objectives, 70 lines of action (trustworthy AI, cybersecurity, skills, data economy)

“Unknown is unloved. But due to a lack of knowledge about AI, Belgium may miss out on a lot of prosperity. Agoria estimates that digitization and AI can create 860,000 jobs by 2030.”

Belgian lawyers should approach AI regulation as a live, phased programme that already affects advice, contracts and compliance workflows: the EU Artificial Intelligence Act started its staged roll‑out with prohibitions on certain systems and AI‑literacy duties from 2 February 2025, moved GPAI (general‑purpose AI) governance and provider obligations into application on 2 August 2025, and brings the bulk of high‑risk obligations into force in August 2026 - so teams advising Belgian clients must combine EU rules with the national implementation steps the Member State must take (designation of competent authorities, market surveillance and sandboxes) rather than waiting for a single “go‑live” date (see the AI Act implementation timeline for the full schedule).

Practical impacts are concrete: GPAI providers face new documentation, transparency and copyright duties, post‑market monitoring, and a potential “rebuttable presumption” of systemic risk where very large models show high capabilities (the Commission's guidance flags compute thresholds such as 10^25 FLOPs as a marker for presumed systemic risk), so Belgian counsel will need to update IP and vendor clauses, design incident‑reporting chains, and confirm who - at national level - will enforce fines and notifications.

The European Commission's GPAI Code of Practice and the July 2025 guidelines give non‑binding but useful roadmaps for meeting Chapter V obligations and can help Belgian firms evidence good‑faith compliance while authorities finish national implementation (for practical pointers see the Commission overview and industry guidance from law firms on GPAI obligations).

Date	Key obligation / milestone
2 Feb 2025	Prohibitions on certain AI practices + AI‑literacy requirements begin
2 Aug 2025	GPAI governance & initial GPAI provider obligations; Member States must designate competent authorities
2 Aug 2026	Majority of AI Act rules (high‑risk obligations) become applicable; national sandboxes operational by this date
2 Aug 2027	Deadline for GPAI providers who placed models on market before 2 Aug 2025 to achieve full compliance

Belgian legal teams need a compact, action‑oriented compliance checklist they can use this quarter: start by assembling a multidisciplinary AI governance team (legal, IT, product, privacy) and run a department‑by‑department AI inventory so every model - even a single chatbot used for intake - is logged and classified against the EU AI Act risk tiers; treat the inventory like a flight manifest, because an unregistered high‑risk system can expose firms to the Act's penalties (up to €35 million or 7% of global turnover).

Next, map roles and create written policies for data rights, licensing and developer/deployer responsibilities; perform vendor AI due diligence and require warranties on IP and open‑source risks; bake in model cards, logging and post‑market monitoring so documentation and human‑oversight controls are automatic at release.

Make Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments a gating check for public or essential‑service uses, train staff to meet the AI‑literacy duties that took effect in February 2025, and update contracts to allocate incident‑reporting, liability and indemnities clearly.

Operationalise these steps with proven resources - see the LexisNexis practical checklist for corporate risk controls and use an interactive EU AI Act compliance checker to confirm your classification and key dates as you prioritise remediation.

Priority	Action
1	Form AI governance team & assign owners
2	Inventory all AI systems & classify under EU AI Act
3	Vendor diligence, IP checks and contract updates
4	Implement documentation: model cards, logging, risk management
5	FRIA for public/essential uses; staff AI literacy training
6	Post‑market monitoring, incident reporting & continuous review

Belgian lawyers looking for high‑value AI applications in 2025 should prioritise proven, time‑backing tools: document automation and contract drafting can cut routine drafting from hours to minutes, contract review and analytics speed due diligence and uncover renegotiation opportunities, and AI‑assisted legal research and ediscovery compress weeks of work into days - studies show dramatic returns such as a Lexis+ AI study that quantifies $1.2M in benefits and a 284% ROI for corporate legal teams, while an Everlaw survey finds generative AI can free up to 32.5 working days per lawyer per year; a practical catalogue of these use cases is available in AIMultiple's roundup of top legal AI applications.

For Belgium this means faster turnaround on cross‑border contracts, smarter pricing of fixed‑fee matters, and the ability for small in‑house teams or solo practitioners to absorb more work without sacrificing quality; the “so what” is simple and vivid - reclaiming 32.5 days a year can turn one extra month into strategic client work, compliance projects or new fee streams.

Start with low‑risk pilots (intake chatbots, template automation, contract review), thread model‑card and logging requirements into procurement, and scale toward analytics, litigation prediction and IP portfolio management as governance and the EU AI Act milestones mature.

Use / Study	Key metric
Lexis+ AI return on investment study	$1.2M benefits; 284% ROI (3‑year PV)
Everlaw generative AI lawyer time savings survey	Up to 32.5 working days saved per lawyer/year
AIMultiple legal AI use cases roundup	Document automation, contract review, e‑discovery, legal research, IP, analytics

“Lexis+ AI is like having a trusted colleague in my office,” said Mr. Pyle.

Risk management for AI in Belgium starts with mapping who sits in the chain of responsibility - provider, deployer, manufacturer or integrator - because civil liability still flows from general contract and tort rules while product‑liability law can impose strict liability under the Belgian Civil Code (Articles 6.41–6.53); see the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus for further context on provider and deployer duties.

Contracts must therefore be surgical: update IP and data licences, add express warranties on training data, logging and patching, define incident‑reporting timelines and allocate indemnities so liability doesn't default to the weakest party.

Expect multi‑track enforcement risk - administrative exposure under the AI Act (penalties up to €35 million or 7% of global turnover) can sit alongside GDPR fines (up to €20 million or 4% of turnover) and private claims - and insurers are already offering AI‑specific products, so insurance should be part of the remediation plan.

Practical steps: classify your role (provider vs deployer), embed model cards and FRIA gating checks into procurement, and insist on audit rights and continuous monitoring in vendor deals; an unvetted model that hallucinates and leaks client secrets can therefore snowball into regulatory, contractual and product‑liability claims unless these layers are pre‑wired.

For guidance on GDPR interaction with AI consider the Nucamp Cybersecurity Fundamentals syllabus, and for practical pointers on insurance and liability see Nucamp financing information.

Liability source	Key point
Product liability	Belgian Civil Code Articles 6.41–6.53 can hold manufacturers liable for defective AI (see the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus)
AI Act penalties	Serious breaches: up to €35M or 7% of global turnover
GDPR exposure	Administrative fines up to €20M or 4% of global turnover; overlapping remedies possible (see the Nucamp Cybersecurity Fundamentals syllabus)
Insurance	AI‑related cover is available; insurers offer tailored policies (see Nucamp financing information)

“AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation than be reactive” – Elon Musk

Belgian privacy law for AI‑era legal work rests squarely on the GDPR as implemented by the Law of 30 July 2018 and an empowered national Data Protection Authority (DPA), so any automated collection or monitoring of people in Belgium - including large-scale online data collection - will typically trigger controller/processor duties such as transparency (Articles 13/14), records of processing (Art.

30), breach notification (notify the authority within 72 hours) and, where processing is high‑risk, a mandated DPIA and DPO appointment; the territorial scope is broad (processing that offers goods or monitors behaviour in Belgium), transfers outside the EEA require adequacy or safeguards plus Schrems‑style transfer impact assessments, and consent in Belgium must be granular, freely given and easy to withdraw (cookie walls are prohibited and regulators have fined non‑compliant sites).

Practically, legal teams should treat scraping or any automated harvesting of user data as potentially subject to data protection law (evaluate lawful basis: consent, contract, legitimate interests, or legal claims), bake privacy notices and DPIAs into procurement of models and data sets, insist on Article 28 contracts for processors, and keep model training provenance and minimisation records to answer future DPA inquiries - the Belgian DPA's practical guidance on AI and cookies (and the EDPB's recent opinion on using personal data for model development) are useful roadmaps for defensible practice.

The “so what?” is immediate: sloppy data collection or a poorly worded cookie banner can trigger administrative fines, enforcement orders and reputational harm, so counsel must hard‑wire GDPR checks into any AI pilot that touches Belgian data.

See practical national guidance from DLA Piper on Belgium's Data Protection Act and the DPA's cookie and AI guidance for next steps.

Topic	Key Belgian facts
Primary law	GDPR + Law of 30 July 2018 (Belgian Data Protection Act)
Supervisory authority	Data Protection Authority (DPA) - reorganised by DPA Act; multiple committees
Breach notification	Notify authority without undue delay, where feasible within 72 hours
Fines	GDPR tiers (up to €20M or 4% turnover); Belgian enforcement examples exist
Cookies / consent	Consent required for non‑essential cookies; cookie walls prohibited; granular consent advised
DPIA / DPO	DPIA mandatory for high‑risk processing; DPO rules follow GDPR + national specifics
International transfers	Adequacy, SCCs or derogations required; perform transfer impact assessments (Schrems II)

Becoming an AI expert in Belgium in 2025 is a pragmatic mix of short, hands‑on courses, regional schemes and real‑world practice: start with targeted lawyer‑facing programs - for example, Le Cercle IA's intensive offerings (from two‑hour workshops to a 12‑week master track and a Brussels summer school) to learn prompt design, confidentiality safeguards and automation templates - then deepen regulatory and leadership skills with Brussels' FARI AI Academy courses (DPO and “Get ready to comply with the EU AI Act” modules) and by attending events such as the AI Legal Summit to see pilots and governance in action.

Take advantage of regional funding: Wallonia's training‑voucher scheme (EUR 30 per hour, employer+Region funded) has already scaled tens of thousands of hours of AI training and makes upskilling affordable.

Combine classroom learning with practice: use ready‑to‑use prompt libraries, build model‑card checklists and run low‑risk pilots so skills turn into billable client work - the “so what?” is simple: a single funded hour of practical training can be the spark that lets a lawyer advise on procurement, compliance and EU AI Act readiness instead of outsourcing that work.

Program / Scheme	Key facts
Le Cercle IA - AI training for lawyers	Tailor‑made formats (in‑person, online, hybrid), from 2 hours to intensive tracks; summer school (Aug 28–29, 2025) in Brussels
FARI AI Academy (Brussels) - responsible AI and EU AI Act courses	Courses for DPOs, AI foundations, responsible AI roadmaps and EU AI Act primers (multi‑day, multilingual)
Wallonia training vouchers (Le Forem) - employer and Region funded AI training	EUR 30 per training hour (covered by employer and Region); 496,063 training hours in 2024; wide catalogue of AI modules

“Fluid, accessible professional training with high added value.” - Steve Griess, Partner, Thales Brussels

The Legal AI Summit Brussels (27–28 February 2025) was a must‑attend crossroads for Belgian legal teams navigating the EU AI Act and fast‑moving LegalTech: sessions ranged from

Power of AI for Legal Research

(with Pascaline Deru and Iris Ruts demonstrating a live AI research tool) to practical how‑to talks on compliance, change management, generative AI in practice, and risk management for in‑house teams, giving lawyers concrete playbooks for procurement, pilots and governance; attendees heard EU regulatory briefings alongside vendor showcases and heard from sponsors such as Harvey (backed by more than $200M in investment) and LexisNexis, making the event both a policy forum and a hands‑on marketplace.

For Belgian counsel the summit offered quick wins - live demos, pilot templates and vendor dialogue - that translate directly into advice clients need today (see the full recap and the event partners list for session and sponsor details).

Date	Location	Notable sponsors	Key tracks
27–28 Feb 2025	Brussels, Belgium	Harvey; Larcier‑Intersentia; LexisNexis; LEGALFLY	Legal research, generative AI, compliance & risk, integration & change management

Belgian legal teams should treat 2025 as the year to move from awareness to disciplined action: prioritise role‑mapping (provider vs deployer), form a cross‑functional AI governance team, run a full inventory and FRIA triage, and lock basic AI‑literacy training and incident‑reporting into HR and procurement processes so pilots don't become compliance crises - remember that 76% of Belgian firms are experimenting with AI while only 21% have scaled solutions, so speed without governance is a liability.

Keep the EU AI Act timetable in view (prohibitions and literacy duties already in force; key GPAI and high‑risk dates ahead) by following practical summaries such as Osborne Clarke's overview, and capture vendor, IP and data provenance evidence now rather than later.

Use events and recaps (for example the AI Legal Summit briefing) to benchmark use cases and vendor claims, and adopt a repeatable impact‑assessment process (ISO/IEC 42005 offers a lifecycle template) to make compliance defensible and scalable.

Finally, close immediate capability gaps with short, work‑focused upskilling - programmes like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work turn prompt design and workplace controls into billable skills in 15 weeks, helping teams convert regulatory risk into client value.

Attribute	Information
Description	Gain practical AI skills for any workplace; learn AI tools, prompt writing, and apply AI across business functions
Length	15 Weeks
Courses included	AI at Work: Foundations; Writing AI Prompts; Job Based Practical AI Skills
Cost	$3,582 (early bird); $3,942 afterwards - paid in 18 monthly payments, first payment due at registration
Syllabus	AI Essentials for Work syllabus - Nucamp
Registration	Register for Nucamp AI Essentials for Work