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

For Danish lawyers, AI is no longer a distant tech trend but a fast-arriving regulatory and operational tide: the government introduced a bill for a first national AI Law on 26 February 2025 that - if enacted - will supplement the EU AI Act and take effect on 2 August 2025, naming competent authorities and enforcement rules for prohibited AI systems, while GDPR, IP and sector rules continue to apply (see the Danish AI Law snapshot).

At the same time, generative tools are already reshaping practice: many legal teams use LLMs weekly, driving efficiency and forcing firms to rethink billing, procurement and risk controls; a clear strategy and controls will separate leaders from laggards.

Stay grounded in the new Danish framework and national strategy, align contracts and data governance, and treat AI as a practice-transforming compliance and competitive issue rather than a mere productivity toy (Danish AI Law (2025) framework, generative AI adoption insights).

“This isn't a topic for your partner retreat in six months… This transformation is happening now.”

The Danish government's first national AI bill (Forslag til Lov om supplerende bestemmelser til forordningen om kunstig intelligens), introduced on 26 February 2025, is a targeted national layer to sit alongside the EU AI Regulation: if enacted it is scheduled to enter into force on 2 August 2025 and will name competent authorities and enforcement rules for prohibited AI systems while leaving GDPR, IP and sector-specific law in place; for a clear summary of the bill and how Denmark is aligning with EU implementation, see the Denmark practice guide from Chambers (Chambers Practice Guide: Denmark Artificial Intelligence 2025 – AI bill summary).

Beyond the procedural designations - where the Agency for Digital Government is set up as the coordinating market-surveillance contact and the DDPA retains a central role - the national approach stays deliberately complementary and guidance-led for now, with regulators focusing on lifecycle guidance, sandboxes and sector-specific notes rather than broad new criminal regimes; however, parallel moves in mid‑2025 to amend copyright law mean Denmark is also pushing a novel route to curb deepfakes by giving individuals enforceable rights over their likenesses and takedown powers (and potential “severe fines” for platforms), as reported in The Guardian's coverage of the proposal (The Guardian: Denmark to tackle deepfakes – copyright amendment coverage).

The practical upshot for lawyers: treat the bill as an operational overlay to EU rules - new reporting, conformity and procurement expectations plus an IP-backed takedown tool for deepfake harms - so governance, supplier clauses and client advisories will need updating in the months after national entry.

“Human beings can be run through, if you would have it, a digital copy machine and misused for all sorts of purposes and I'm not willing to accept that.”

Denmark's 2025 law changes create a practical, national layer on top of the EU AI Act that shifts the debate from theory to operational rules: the Danish AI bill (first tabled on 26 February 2025) and rapid national implementation steps mean Denmark has named market‑surveillance and notifying bodies (with the Agency for Digital Government as the single point of contact alongside Datatilsynet and the Danish Court Administration) while retaining GDPR, sector rules and liability regimes as the baseline (see a clear summary in the Chambers Denmark practice guide).

Crucially, Denmark has also moved to curb deepfakes by amending copyright to give individuals takedown and civil-remedy powers for unauthorised synthetic likenesses, balancing freedom of expression and personal rights as reported by The Guardian.

Those national moves arrive as the EU's phased obligations - foundational governance, the AI Office/AI Board and GPAI transparency rules - come into force in 2025, bringing documentation, training‑data summaries and new penalty regimes that affect providers and deployers across borders (DLA Piper).

The practical takeaways for lawyers and firms in Denmark are concrete: update supplier contracts and IP clauses, build incident reporting and conformity documentation into procurement, and treat deepfake risk as a real client‑facing liability rather than a hypothetical - one convincing synthetic video can trigger takedown demands, cross‑border enforcement and costly reputational damage.

“Human beings can be run through, if you would have it, a digital copy machine and misused for all sorts of purposes and I'm not willing to accept that.”

Data protection in Denmark sits on the GDPR backbone supplemented by the Danish Data Protection Act, so confidentiality, privilege and client secrecy aren't optional extras when adopting AI - they're legal constraints that must be designed into every workflow.

Start with whether your AI use is “high risk”: Article 35 requires a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) before you roll out automated scoring, large‑scale profiling, sensitive data processing or systematic monitoring, and the Danish Data Protection Agency has published practical DPIA guidance and a list of always‑high‑risk processing types to help decide when one's needed (Danish Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet) DPIA guidance for GDPR impact assessments).

Appoint a Data Protection Officer where required, involve IT and security early, and bake privacy‑by‑design and minimisation into models and data flows - Linklaters' Denmark briefing neatly summarises how the Danish Act aligns with GDPR on DPO duties, breach reporting and special rules for CPR numbers and employee data (Linklaters briefing on how the Danish Data Protection Act aligns with GDPR).

Practically, that means robust processor contracts (Article 28 clauses), encryption and access controls, documented records of processing, and a tested breach plan (notify the DPA without undue delay, 72‑hour target where feasible); the alternative is regulatory fines (up to 4% of global turnover or €20m) or costly reputational damage.

Think of the DPIA as a project seatbelt: it's a short upfront investment that prevents expensive crashes later - especially when client privilege and sensitive personal data are in play.

For Danish lawyers, professional duties around AI fold familiar obligations into a new technical reality: the duty of competence now includes technological competence, supervision and clear policies for AI use, and local legal bodies (including the Danish Bar and Law Society) are already issuing practical guidance to keep standards intact - see the Chambers 2025 AI Practice Guide: Denmark trends and developments.

Ethical obligations mean more than buzzwords: maintain client confidentiality when feeding data into models, adopt written AI-use policies and training, document supervisory steps when delegating tasks to tools or junior staff, and bake verification steps into every AI-assisted output so hallucinations are caught before they reach a court or client.

Courts and regulators elsewhere already flag disclosure requirements and even bans in filings, and commentators urge that failing to understand an AI's limits risks malpractice or sanctions while eroding client trust - practical steps include updating engagement letters, insisting on processor‑level contractual protections in procurement, and making periodic competence checks part of CLE and onboarding (AttorneyAtWork: ethical responsibility to use and understand AI in law practice).

The “so what?” is simple: one unchecked AI citation or bogus precedent can inflict immediate professional and reputational harm, so prudent firms will treat AI governance as core ethics work, not an optional tech pilot.

“operating under the false perception that [ChatGPT] could not possibly be fabricating cases on its own.”

When buying or licensing AI in Denmark, treat the contract as the control room: start with a GDPR‑grade Data Processing Agreement that implements Article 28 duties and, where needed, Standard Contractual Clauses for cross‑border flows (Denmark's jurisdiction guide is a useful reference on SCCs and local practice) (DataGuidance Denmark SCCs and Article 28 guidance); then hard‑wire five commercial protections into the deal - clear IP warranties and indemnities about training data, express prohibitions (or tightly scoped, anonymisation‑only permission) on using client or confidential inputs to train models, robust audit and transparency rights including documentation of training sets and performance baselines, carefully allocated liability and insurance specs, and an explicit compliance/update clause linking the supplier to EU/DAK regulatory duties and future rule changes (Kennedys Law article: AI and commercial contracts - five clauses in‑house teams should review).

Insist on a Denmark‑governed DPA/Data Protection Addendum with specific TOMs, sub‑processor controls and DPIA assistance (templates and checklist language are available for Denmark‑compliant DPAs) (Genie AI Denmark Data Protection Addendum (DPA) template); a single convincing synthetic video or a leaked memo reused to train a model can instantly turn a negotiated sale into a regulatory and reputational crisis, so stamp a no‑training/no‑re‑use covenant into the contract and require audit rights to prove it.

Operational governance for Denmark-based legal practices should begin with aligning roles and controls to the country's early implementation timetable and designated authorities - the Agency for Digital Government, Datatilsynet and the Danish Court Administration - following the national adoption on May 8, 2025 and the August 2, 2025 entry into force (see the Denmark implementation snapshot).

From there, build a cross‑functional governance playbook that mirrors best practice: a centralized AI inventory with a risk‑rating system, clear accountability (a governance board or CAIO role), lifecycle procedures for model testing and deployment, and documented conformity routes for high‑risk systems and third‑party assessments (see the enterprise governance framework).

Technical controls must be practical and proportionate: encryption and strict access controls, continuous model monitoring and bias detection dashboards, tamper‑proof logging for audits, and routine third‑party or conformity assessments so evidence is ready for market‑surveillance requests.

Denmark's industry white paper approach - a public‑private blueprint adopted by major players - shows how scalable technical standards and staff training can coexist with compliance obligations, helping firms turn rules into operational muscle.

Treat these controls as part of everyday practice rather than a later add‑on: governance is the operating manual that makes AI both usable and defensible in a regulated Danish market.

All it takes is one incident for a company to lose credibility.

Practice-area impacts in Denmark are already concrete: litigation and investigations teams will see e‑discovery and early‑case intelligence accelerate from weeks to days as generative models sift terabytes, surface key custodians, and produce exhibit-ready summaries - think AI that can review NDAs with 94% accuracy in 26 seconds versus human reviewers taking 92 minutes - so plan workflows around rapid, defensible culling and human verification (see IE's look at AI in law).

E‑discovery vendors and in‑house teams should adopt GenAI for identification, redaction and sentiment analysis but pair it with strict privacy controls and documented TAR/CAL procedures because hallucinations and copyright risks remain real (detailed e‑discovery playbooks and risks are covered by Hexaware and Alvarez & Marsal).

For transactional lawyers, contract review and M&A due diligence will shift from grunt review to exception handling and judgement‑calls, changing junior roles and prompting new fee models - expect pressure to move away from pure hourly billing and to disclose AI use in client agreements (ethical and billing guidance is discussed in AttorneyAtWork).

IP and reputation practices must embed the new Danish takedown and deepfake remedies into client advisories, while regulatory teams will need rapid conformity and reporting playbooks as Denmark's agencies operationalise the national AI layer.

The practical takeaway for firms across Denmark: map use cases to risk (privilege, GDPR, hallucination, copyright), update engagement letters and procurement clauses, and make one small but memorable rule - never let unchecked AI output travel to a court or client without a lawyer's sign‑off; that single check prevents an instant, expensive credibility crash.

For pragmatic how‑to's and case workflows, start with vendor‑controlled sandboxing and stepwise pilots that run AI alongside existing reviews so evidence and audit trails are ready if regulators or opposing counsel demand them (IE - The future of AI in law: trends and innovations, Hexaware - Navigating e-discovery with Generative AI, AttorneyAtWork - AI and legal billing practices).

AI will no doubt have an enormous impact on e-discovery and the legal industry more widely and will certainly drive competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Denmark's legal market is rapidly moving from experimentation to everyday tooling: contract‑first teams already lean on platforms that embed AI where lawyers work, and the most practical choices are those that balance explainability, privacy and workflow fit.

For contract-heavy practices, end‑to‑end CLMs with agentic review (notably Juro's intelligent contracting approach) speed routine NDAs and MSAs while keeping playbooks and audit trails intact - Juro intelligent contracting guide explains how agentic redlines and clause extraction turn minutes of review into seconds; for deep Word‑centric drafting and redlining, Gavel Exec Word‑integrated legal AI assistant offers a secure, Word‑integrated assistant built for legal text, and specialist platforms such as CoCounsel and Luminance serve research, e‑discovery and enterprise‑scale analysis needs (see IE University: The future of AI in law - trends and innovations on where AI is reshaping research and roles).

Market trends to watch: agentic AI that completes workflows, a clearer build‑versus‑buy calculus, and growing demand for explainable outputs and vendor guarantees; the career implication is stark and immediate - entry‑level hiring patterns are already shifting, with some data showing fewer junior roles as AI handles the grunt work - so developing skills in CLM operations, e‑discovery, prompt engineering and AI governance will pay off.

Practical rule: start with a narrowly defined use case, pilot with non‑sensitive files, insist on vendor DPA/SOC‑level safeguards, and measure time‑saved metrics so technology decisions are defensible to clients and regulators.

Final steps to make Denmark-ready AI work for a law practice: treat governance as non‑negotiable and follow a short, practical checklist - assemble a multidisciplinary AI governance team and formalise written policies and staff training as recommended in the LexisNexis AI technology legal risks checklist (LexisNexis AI technology legal risks checklist); run a DPIA early (use the Danish templates and DPA guidance noted by ActiveMind and Datatilsynet so “high‑risk” uses are documented and mitigations recorded) (ActiveMind guidance: DPIA under Danish law); keep an AI inventory with risk ratings, require human sign‑off on any output heading to clients or court, and pilot on non‑sensitive files with tamper‑proof logs and red‑team QA to spot hallucinations; bake robust vendor clauses into procurement - no‑training/no‑reuse covenants, Article 28 DPAs, audit rights and liability/indemnity language - and insist on SOC/TOM evidence before deployment; finally, update engagement letters and incident playbooks so compliance, notification and takedown workflows are immediate (a single unchecked AI output can trigger rapid DPIA follow‑ups, takedowns and enforcement).

For pragmatic, skills‑first preparation, consider formal training like the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp to build workplace AI competence and prompt engineering skills (AI Essentials for Work bootcamp - Nucamp registration).