Lawyers banned from taking money for work performed by AI: new rules in the US

The Alabama Bar Association (USA) has released new guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in legal practice. According to them, lawyers cannot bill clients for hours of work saved through the use of AI. At the same time, they will still be paid for the verification, editing and professional analysis of materials created using artificial intelligence.

This is reported by Reuters.

What clients can pay for

The Alabama Bar Association emphasized that the use of generative artificial intelligence does not create new ethical obligations for lawyers, but requires compliance with existing professional standards.

In particular, lawyers can include in their fees:

verification of information created by AI;

correction of errors;

legal analysis;
application of their own professional judgment to the results obtained.

At the same time, it is prohibited to pay the client for time saved through the use of artificial intelligence.

The recommendations explicitly state that efficiency cannot be a reason for inflating bills.

Lawyers remain responsible for the result

The panel also recalled that regardless of the use of artificial intelligence, the lawyer is fully responsible for the documents prepared.

Lawyers must independently check all legal references generated by AI using authoritative legal databases before submitting documents to the court.

This approach is consistent with the position of the American Bar Association, which previously stated that the use of modern technologies does not exempt a lawyer from professional responsibility to the client.

Sanctions for fictional court decisions

The emergence of new recommendations is associated with a number of cases of improper use of artificial intelligence by American lawyers.

Thus, last year, a federal judge in Alabama imposed sanctions on a partner at the law firm Butler Snow after fictional court decisions created by artificial intelligence were discovered in two procedural documents.

In addition, in April of this year, the Alabama Supreme Court rejected an appeal and imposed sanctions on a lawyer who also filed documents with references to non-existent court cases generated by AI.

Risks to attorney-client privilege

The recommendations pay special attention to the protection of confidential client information.

The Bar Association notes that entering personal data or case materials into open AI systems can create risks to attorney-client privilege. Therefore, lawyers are recommended to use corporate or closed AI platforms that provide an appropriate level of data protection, instead of free services with undefined terms of information storage.

The new recommendations are another step towards the formation of uniform rules for the use of artificial intelligence in the legal profession. At the same time, they confirm the main principle: regardless of what technologies are used in the preparation of documents, the ultimate responsibility for their content and quality always lies with the lawyer.