State supreme courts and bar associations must lead modern regulatory reform to effectively govern the responsible use of AI and technology-enhanced legal services products, according to a newly released policy paper from the Thomson Reuters Institute, National Center for State Courts AI Policy Consortium for Law and Courts
The growing access-to-justice crisis coupled with the rapid pace of AI innovation creates a unique opportunity for state courts and bar associations to meet the moment by adopting regulatory reforms that support AI-fueled legal service delivery tools to responsibly assist with legal needs.
“State bar associations and state supreme courts alone possess the nuanced understanding of legal practice necessary to craft effective regulations that properly balance innovation, access to justice, and consumer protection,” the paper states. “The stakes are high: proactive leadership by legal regulatory authorities can ensure thoughtful, informed policy development, while regulatory inaction risks ceding control to less specialized governmental bodies.”
To respond, leaders should consider three approaches to regulating technology’s impact on unauthorized practice of law (UPL) based on the state’s specific context, regulatory capacity, appetite for innovation, and level of commitment to ensuring meaningful access to justice for all.
The authors propose three approaches:
• States can revise existing UPL regulations to explicitly permit vetted AI tools, with requirements about disclosure, data security, and transparency.
• States can implement a regulatory sandbox that allows for AI-driven legal services and consumer-facing products to be tested in a controlled, supervised environment, balancing innovation with consumer protection, while generating data to inform future revisions of UPL rulemaking.
• States can revise the definition of the unauthorized practice of law so that only persons licensed and in good standing by [state bar/office of court] may hold themselves out as lawyers or attorneys, and either:
- represent others in court or tribunal proceedings, or
- provide legal advice or prepare documents for others affecting legal rights and duties.
“The crucial takeaway is that some form of proactive engagement with AI's role in legal services is imperative. Waiting for perfect solutions or allowing fear of the unknown to paralyze progress is not an option,” the authors write. “Doing nothing is no choice at all and will perpetuate the access to justice crisis and cede the future of legal services to unregulated, and potentially harmful, market forces. It is time to embrace change responsibly and reshape the legal landscape to truly serve the public good.”
To read the entire policy paper online, visit www.ncsc.org/resources-courts/modernizing-unauthorized-practice-law-regulations-embrace-technology-improve.
The growing access-to-justice crisis coupled with the rapid pace of AI innovation creates a unique opportunity for state courts and bar associations to meet the moment by adopting regulatory reforms that support AI-fueled legal service delivery tools to responsibly assist with legal needs.
“State bar associations and state supreme courts alone possess the nuanced understanding of legal practice necessary to craft effective regulations that properly balance innovation, access to justice, and consumer protection,” the paper states. “The stakes are high: proactive leadership by legal regulatory authorities can ensure thoughtful, informed policy development, while regulatory inaction risks ceding control to less specialized governmental bodies.”
To respond, leaders should consider three approaches to regulating technology’s impact on unauthorized practice of law (UPL) based on the state’s specific context, regulatory capacity, appetite for innovation, and level of commitment to ensuring meaningful access to justice for all.
The authors propose three approaches:
• States can revise existing UPL regulations to explicitly permit vetted AI tools, with requirements about disclosure, data security, and transparency.
• States can implement a regulatory sandbox that allows for AI-driven legal services and consumer-facing products to be tested in a controlled, supervised environment, balancing innovation with consumer protection, while generating data to inform future revisions of UPL rulemaking.
• States can revise the definition of the unauthorized practice of law so that only persons licensed and in good standing by [state bar/office of court] may hold themselves out as lawyers or attorneys, and either:
- represent others in court or tribunal proceedings, or
- provide legal advice or prepare documents for others affecting legal rights and duties.
“The crucial takeaway is that some form of proactive engagement with AI's role in legal services is imperative. Waiting for perfect solutions or allowing fear of the unknown to paralyze progress is not an option,” the authors write. “Doing nothing is no choice at all and will perpetuate the access to justice crisis and cede the future of legal services to unregulated, and potentially harmful, market forces. It is time to embrace change responsibly and reshape the legal landscape to truly serve the public good.”
To read the entire policy paper online, visit www.ncsc.org/resources-courts/modernizing-unauthorized-practice-law-regulations-embrace-technology-improve.
