The Oregon State Bar recently issued an ethics opinion addressing the use of artificial intelligence tools in law practice. OSB Formal Opinion 2005-205 (2025) surveys the issues surrounding AI tools in law practice generally and is similar in scope and content to the comprehensive opinion the ABA issued on this topic last summer—ABA Formal Opinion 512 (2024). The opinions are available, respectively, on the OSB and ABA websites. While not plowing any new ground, the Oregon opinion offers reassurance to Oregon practitioners that the national guidance in the ABA opinion applies with equal measure to local use of AI tools.
Like its ABA counterpart, the Oregon opinion focuses on competence and confidentiality—along with billing, supervision, and appropriate use in court filings. Oregon does not have comments to its RPCs, so the opinion borrows from both the ABA Model Rule comments and from a prior Oregon opinion on cloud computing—OSB Formal Opinion 2011-188 (rev. 2015).
On competence, the Oregon opinion stresses that lawyers must understand how the AI tools they are using in law practice work to meet their duty of competence. In doing so, the Oregon opinion cites the notorious New York case—Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp.3d 443 (S.D.N.Y. 2023)—where a lawyer used ChatGPT to write a brief that included citations to non-existent cases and then claimed later in the face of sanctions that he didn’t understand how the tool worked.
On confidentiality, the Oregon opinion relies on its earlier cloud computing counterpart to stress that lawyers need to understand the contractual assurances of confidentiality that are typically offered by commercial AI tools oriented toward law practice and other professional fields. It adds that while consumer AI tools are not prohibited in law practice, their use may need to be carefully tailored to avoid disclosing client confidential information in an unprotected environment.
Both the Oregon and ABA opinions implicitly acknowledge that they are offering current guidance in a very rapidly evolving area and that their analysis is based largely on the experience gained through integrating earlier waves of technological change into law practice. As such, neither bills itself as the “last word” on this changing topic. For the “here and now,” however, they both offer prudent practical advice to lawyers incorporating AI into their practices.
Mark Fucile. Mark handles professional responsibility, regulatory and attorney-client privilege matters throughout the Northwest. He has chaired the WSBA Committee on Professional Ethics and is a co-editor of the Bar’s publications “Law of Lawyering in Washington” and the Legal Ethics Deskbook. He can be reached at 503-224-4895 or mark@frllp.com.
