Insights
On AI in the practice of law.
Essays on the institutions, professional duties, and public systems being reshaped by artificial intelligence. Written from inside legal practice, and alongside the work of building the tools.
What ABA Formal Opinion 512 Requires of Lawyers Using AI
The ABA's first formal ethics opinion on generative AI says the rules you already follow govern your use of these tools, and they govern it now.
ReadAI-Fabricated Citation Cases Every Litigator Should Know
Five named cases, one repeated failure, and the written protocol that keeps your firm off the list.
ReadIs ChatGPT Confidential for Lawyers? It Depends on the Account, Not the Model
The confidentiality of an AI chatbot rarely turns on the model; it turns on whether your firm signed consumer terms or a commercial contract.
ReadState Bar AI Ethics Guidance: What the Rules Actually Require
Generative AI did not create new ethical duties; it stress-tested the ones lawyers already had, and the states are converging on the same five answers.
ReadHow to Write a Law Firm AI-Use Policy: A Practical Guide
What a one-to-two page firm AI-use policy should contain, grounded in ABA Formal Opinion 512 and the duties of competence, confidentiality, and supervision.
ReadRule 1.1 Comment 8 and AI: The Technological Competence Duty Every Firm Now Faces
The duty of technological competence is no longer an aspiration. With generative AI in daily practice, it is a concrete operating standard.
ReadBilling for AI Under Rule 1.5: What Reasonable-Fee Rules Allow
When AI cuts the hours a task takes, the reasonable-fee rules still govern; here is what the ABA, North Carolina, and Virginia say you may charge.
ReadSupervising AI: A Partner's Duty Under Rules 5.1 and 5.3
When an associate files a brief built on a fabricated citation, the supervising lawyer's name is on the line too, and the rules say so.
ReadAI Legal Research Tools Are Useful and Unreliable: What the Stanford Studies and ABA Opinion 512 Require
Two Stanford studies put numbers on legal AI error rates, and the sanctions cases and ABA Formal Opinion 512 make verification a professional duty, not an option.
ReadLegal AI Tools for Small and Mid-Sized Firms: A Grounded Survey
The four categories of legal AI tools a 3-to-30-attorney firm should know, the real products in each, and the professional duties that attach the moment any of them touches a client matter.
ReadAI Standing Orders in Court: What Filers Must Now Certify
A growing number of judges require a written certification about generative AI use and human review before they will accept your filing, and the obligation behind it is one lawyers already owe.
ReadAI, Chatbots, and Rule 5.5: Where Law Firms Cross the Unauthorized-Practice Line
A client-facing chatbot and an over-trusted AI draft create exposure in two directions, and both trace back to a small set of plain, older rules.
ReadShould You Tell Clients You Use AI? What Rule 1.4 and ABA Opinion 512 Actually Require
No ethics opinion requires blanket disclosure of all AI use, so the real task is knowing the few situations where consent is mandatory and handling them at intake.
ReadFlorida Bar Opinion 24-1 on Generative AI, Explained for Small Firms
A focused walkthrough of how Florida Ethics Opinion 24-1 applies confidentiality, oversight, fee, and advertising duties to lawyers using generative AI.
ReadTexas Opinion 705 on Generative AI, Explained for Small Firms
A focused guide to what the State Bar of Texas told its lawyers about using generative AI, and what it means for firms of three to thirty attorneys.
ReadWadsworth v. Walmart: Why an In-House AI Tool Is Not a Defense
A large firm with its own proprietary research platform still filed eight fabricated cases, which tells you the safeguard was never the tool.
ReadWhy grounded (RAG) legal AI hallucinates less, and why you still verify
A system that answers from a defined set of documents hallucinates less than a raw chatbot, but a lower error rate is still an error rate, and the duty to verify does not change.
ReadBuild vs. Buy Legal AI: When a Small Firm Should Build Its Own
Buy the mature commercial tools for research and contract review, and build only where your firm holds a defensible private asset no vendor can sell.
ReadAI in an Immigration Practice: Where It Helps and Where It Bites
AI can compress the repetitive spine of high-volume immigration work, but sensitive client data and unverified output set hard limits on where it belongs.
ReadAI for Trusts and Estates: Document Assembly Done Right
Trusts and estates work runs on repeated language, which makes it a natural fit for AI, provided the model is grounded in your templates and checked by a lawyer.
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