What does ABA Formal Opinion 512 say about a lawyer using AI tools?

What is this opinion?

The ABA lists the opinion as released on July 29, 2024. It is the ABA Standing Committee's first formal opinion on generative AI in the practice of law. It is an ethics opinion on the Model Rules, not a rule itself.

July 29, 2024 ABA issues first ethics guidance on a lawyer's use of AI tools

The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released today its first formal opinion covering the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) in the practice of law

What does it say about ethical obligations?

The ABA's release says the opinion asks lawyers and law firms using these tools to fully consider their applicable ethical obligations.

It names four duties: competent representation, protecting client information, communicating with clients and charging reasonable fees.

Formal Opinion 512 states that to ensure clients are protected, lawyers and law firms using GAI must "fully consider their applicable ethical obligations," which includes duties to provide competent legal representation, to protect client information, to communicate with clients and to charge reasonable fees consistent with time spent using GAI.

What does it say about understanding the technology?

The release says Model Rule 1.1 states that lawyers should understand the benefits and risks of the technologies used to deliver legal services to clients.

In addition, the model rule states lawyers should understand "the benefits and risks associated" with the technologies used to deliver legal services to clients.

What does it say about client information?

The release says Model Rule 1.6 asks a lawyer using these tools to keep confidential all information relating to the representation of a client, whatever its source, unless the client gives informed consent.

We read the ABA's own release about the opinion. The opinion itself is a longer document; the release names no technical control.

Under this model rule, a lawyer using GAI must be cognizant of the duty to keep confidential all information relating to the representation of a client, regardless of its source, unless the client gives informed consent.

What can an external reading show for this rule?

This law is about what a business does after a breach: who it tells, and how fast. An external reading cannot tell whether a breach has happened inside your systems, what personal information you hold, whether it is encrypted where you keep it, or whether anyone has been told.

What it can show, read externally the way anyone could, is evidence about ways someone could get in: whether your domain publishes a rule telling mail servers to refuse email forged in your name, whether remote access or file sharing services answer from the internet, and whether addresses at your domain are listed in monitored breach databases.

The text names none of these. They are evidence about how a breach could start, never proof that a firm meets the law.

Is this legal advice?

No. This summarises the public text; it is not legal advice.

The text itself is the authority. Read it at the source below.