From the Desk of Kevin M. Clark
The American Bar Association has just released its Year 2 Report on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Practice of Law, prepared by the ABA Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence. This report reflects a clear shift in the profession’s posture toward AI, moving from theoretical debate to practical integration, governance, and accountability.
• The ABA’s message is clear and direct: AI is now embedded in modern legal practice, and its use carries ethical, professional, and operational consequences. Adoption without intention or oversight is no longer defensible.
• The report focuses on five core areas:
• AI’s impact on legal practice and client service
• Governance, risk management, and liability
• Judicial use of AI and evidentiary implications
• Access to justice and system efficiency
• Ethics, education, and professional competence
• Together, these themes reflect a profession transitioning from experimentation to integration.
• Law firms are rapidly deploying AI for low-risk, high-volume tasks such as:
• Document summarization
• First-draft preparation
• Email and memo drafting
• Document review support
• The next phase is more complex: agentic and chained AI workflows, where tools perform multiple connected tasks. While these systems promise significant efficiency gains, they also amplify risk when used without guardrails.
• The report also highlights a growing divide between technology “haves” and “have-nots,” driven by the cost of secure, enterprise-grade AI platforms and the expertise required to support them. Importantly, AI is increasingly viewed as a thought partner, augmenting legal reasoning and strategy rather than simply automating tasks.
• Key takeaways: Competitive advantage will come from disciplined integration, not ad hoc or unsupervised AI use.
• The ABA reinforces a non-negotiable principle: human oversight is required. AI-generated output must always be verified.
• The report underscores ongoing risks, including:
• Generative AI hallucinations
• Inaccurate citations and fabricated authority
• Confidentiality and data exposure
• Lawyers remain bound by duties of:
• Competence
• Confidentiality
• Client communication
• Reasonableness of fees when AI is used
• Notably, more than 30 states have now issued ethics opinions or court guidance on AI use, signaling increasing regulatory scrutiny.
• The Bottom Line: Lawyers who use AI without understanding its limitations face real ethical and liability exposure. At the same time, lawyers who refuse to engage with AI risk falling behind evolving standards of professional competence.
• A significant portion of the report is devoted to the judiciary, including consensus guidelines for judges developed in collaboration with AI experts.
• Key principles include:
• Judges remain solely responsible for decisions—AI cannot replace judicial judgment
• AI may assist with research, administrative drafting, and case management, but not unverified decision-making
• Deepfakes and AI-generated evidence pose serious challenges for authentication and admissibility
• Disclosure obligations and ex parte concerns require careful attention
• What this means for litigators: Courts are becoming more AI-literate, not less. Expect increased scrutiny of AI-generated materials and evolving expectations around disclosure.
• The ABA places heavy see emphasis on formal AI governance frameworks, drawing from models such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.
• Key risks identified include:
• Data privacy and confidentiality
• Bias and fairness in automated systems
• Transparency and explainability
• Disinformation and deepfakes
• Allocation of liability when AI systems cause harm
• The report makes it clear that:
• AI governance is now a C-suite and board-level issue
• Organizations must define ownership, oversight, escalation, and accountability
• Existing laws already apply to AI, even as new regulations continue to emerge
• Practical takeaways: Internal AI policies, vendor diligence, and contractual protections are no longer optional—they are foundational.
• One of the most optimistic sections of the report focuses on access to justice.
• AI is already being used to:
• Help self-represented litigants navigate court systems and forms
• Enable legal aid organizations to scale services without proportional cost increases
• At the same time, the ABA cautions that high licensing costs could unintentionally widen the justice gap if left unaddressed.
• Down the Road: AI has the potential to transform dispute resolution and legal access, but only if affordability, quality, and oversight are addressed intentionally.
• Legal education is evolving quickly:
• Over half of surveyed law schools now offer AI-related coursework
• Some have made AI education mandatory
• The ABA makes a strong prediction: AI literacy will soon be a baseline professional skill, not a niche specialization.
• Where This Is Headed: The profession will increasingly worry less about lawyers who use AI—and more about those who do not.
• The ABA’s Year 2 Report makes one thing unmistakably clear: AI is reshaping the legal profession structurally, not incrementally. The organizations and practitioners who succeed will be those who pair innovation with governance, experimentation with discipline, and efficiency with professional judgment.
• AI is no longer a side conversation in legal practice. It is now a core competency—and a shared responsibility.
If this raises questions about how AI fits into your practice or workflows, lets connect, compare notes, and discuss how these developments may apply to your organization.
Topics: ABA AI report, artificial intelligence in law, legal AI governance, responsible AI legal practice, AI ethics for lawyers, legal technology trends, AI in litigation, AI in eDiscovery, law firm AI strategy, judicial use of AI, legal risk management AI, future of legal practice, AI professional competence, legal innovation governance