Connector Google Drive

Connector — Google Drive

What it does

The Google Drive connector provides access to documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, and other files stored in the user's Google Drive workspace. In a legal-AI context, its primary use is surfacing existing documents — precedents, draft contracts, due-diligence questionnaires, matter files — as context for AI-assisted drafting, review, and analysis.

Core functions:

• Search — find documents by keyword, file name, owner, or date.
• Read — retrieve the content of a document for use as context.
• Attach to matter — link a Drive document to a matter record.
• Download — export a Google Doc as a PDF or DOCX for further processing.

Setup / auth

Authentication uses Google OAuth 2.0 with per-user delegation:

• Each user authorizes their own Google Drive — no admin-wide delegation unless Google Workspace is configured with domain-wide delegation.
• OAuth scopes:
  • drive.readonly — for search and read operations.
  • drive.file — for creating or modifying files the app created (narrower than full Drive access).
  • drive.metadata.readonly — for file metadata only (name, owner, modified date) without reading content.
• Default to drive.readonly unless a write capability is explicitly required.
• Tokens stored per-user, encrypted at rest.

Capabilities

Usage patterns

Pattern 1 — Retrieve a precedent before drafting

User: "Draft an NDA based on our standard template"
→ Search Drive for "NDA template" in the firm's Precedents folder
→ Return the most recent version as context
→ Draft a new NDA using the template as the base, adapting for the specific parties

Pattern 2 — Data room indexing

For an M&A due diligence, the data room is often shared via Google Drive:

• List all files in the shared data room folder.
• Return a structured index: file name, type, last modified, and folder path.
• Flag missing items against a standard due-diligence checklist.

Pattern 3 — Contract review from Drive

User: "Review the SPA at [Drive link]"
→ Retrieve the document content from Drive
→ Run the contract through the relevant review skill
→ Return a structured review with flagged clauses

Pattern 4 — Generate and save a document back to Drive

After generating a contract draft:

• Export as DOCX.
• Upload to the designated matter folder in Drive.
• Return the Drive link for the lawyer to access.

Pattern 5 — Matter folder organization

For each new matter, create a standard folder structure in Drive:

/Matters/2024-045 Al-Hamdan v. TechCo/
  ├── 01 Correspondence/
  ├── 02 Pleadings/
  ├── 03 Evidence/
  ├── 04 Research/
  └── 05 Drafts/

This can be automated via the connector on matter creation.

Document security considerations

• Shared drives. In law firms using Google Workspace, most matter documents are in Shared Drives (formerly Team Drives). Confirm the user has access before attempting to read.
• External sharing. Do not change the sharing permissions of a client document without explicit lawyer instruction. Accidental "anyone with link" sharing of privileged documents is a confidentiality breach.
• Version history. Google Docs maintain version history. When reviewing a contract, confirm you are reading the current (most recent) version — not a draft that has since been superseded.
• Privileged documents. Documents in Drive may be attorney-client privileged or subject to work-product protection. Treat all matter documents as potentially privileged unless the user confirms otherwise.

Permissions & safety

• Read-first. Default to drive.readonly. Escalate to write scope only when a write operation is explicitly requested.
• No autonomous sharing. Changing file permissions requires explicit human instruction and a confirmation step.
• Audit log. All reads, searches, and writes are logged with user ID, timestamp, and file ID.
• Tenant isolation. Each user's Drive access is scoped to their own account and shared drives they are members of.

Failure modes

Related skills

• [[connector-gmail]]
• [[connector-notion]]
• [[connector-calendar]]
• [[connector-apple-notes]]