As Cimplifi discusses in this post, there are six recurring duty themes that define lawyer duties in the age of generative AI.
In their latest post titled (wait for it!) Stepping Up to the Plate: Lawyer Duties in the Age of Generative AI (available here), Cimplifi discusses six recurring duty themes that organize nearly every AI authority. Here’s one of them:
Competence: In an extension of ABA Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8 regarding competence, lawyers have a practical obligation to understand the capabilities, limits, bias risks, confidentiality architecture, and hallucination risk of the particular tool being used. For example:
- The Alaska Bar Association’s Ethics Opinion 2025-1 says lawyers must understand “how the technology works”.
- The Arizona Bar Association’s Guidance for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law in Arizona says “Legal professionals must understand the functionality, limitations, and risks of generative AI before use”.
- The Illinois Supreme Court Policy on Artificial Intelligence says users must understand “both general AI capabilities and the specific tools”.
- Legal Ethics Opinion 24-01 from the Lawyer Disciplinary Board of West Virginia says AI should “supplement, not replace” legal reasoning.
So, what are the other five recurring duty themes that organize nearly every AI authority? Find out here, it’s only one click! You can’t do your duty without clicking! 😉
So, what do you think? Is your organization applying best practices for AI ethics and defensibility in legal practice? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Image created using DALL-E 3, using the term “robot batter stepping up to the plate with a robot catcher and a robot umpire behind the plate with fans in the stands behind them”.
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