LAWYERS AND A.I. – THE LEGAL PROFESSION
Lawyers and A.I. With the rapid developement of generative A.I., which is accessible and usable on a large scale in every field, individuals and professionals are increasingly relying on digital assistants. Lawyers are no exception, as they increasingly rely on generative A.I.
However, there is still little understanding of how these systems work and the risks involved.
REGULATORY DEVELOPMENTS
At regulatory level, law is playing catch-up with technology, with similarities between the industrial revolution and today’s digital revolution. At the European level, the Council of Europe issued the first international treaty, the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, in 2024. This treaty is binding on all member states of the Council of Europe and open to accession by third countries.
At the European Union level, the A.I. Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, was recently issued and entered into force in 2025. The latter regulation adopts a risk-based approach.
At the Italian level, Law 132/2025 was enacted at the end of 2025, implementing the A.I. Act.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
The extensive use of A.I. is also creating significant environmental problems. A.I. involves enormous energy consumption, often due to excessive use of this tool, even for purposes where it could be dispensed with.
OPPORTUNITIES AND CAUTION
In the legal profession, as in many other professional fields, A.I. can certainly be a tool for improving efficiency, but caution must be exercised in its use.
The call for caution and the need for precautions in its use in the legal profession have been clearly indicated in the CCBE guidelines on the use of generative artificial intelligence for lawyers, published on 2 October 2025.
The guidelines cover a number of crucial aspects.
ADVANTAGES
The adoption of A.I. in the legal profession is growing rapidly, mainly for legal research, document summarisation and drafting. The advantages are significant:
– greater operational efficiency;
– cost reduction;
– resource optimisation;
– improved access to justice.
RISKS
However, the use of generative A.I. carries critical risks that lawyers must manage with caution. These include “hallucinations” (factually inaccurate responses or invented case law), algorithmic biases that can amplify social prejudices, and a tendency towards sycophancy, where the system panders to the user instead of providing critical analysis.
In Italy, as in virtually all countries, there have already been cases of solicitors relying on generative A.I. with disastrous results, producing completely fabricated judgments in court.
Further concerns relate to data confidentiality, as the inclusion of sensitive information in prompts could lead to its reuse for model training, violating professional secrecy. Added to this are issues of transparency (the “black box” phenomenon), intellectual property issues regarding input and output data, cybersecurity risks, and potential fraud through deepfakes.
PROFESSIONAL DUTIES
The guide emphasises that the use of AI in the legal profession does not exempt solicitors from their fundamental professional obligations. Confidentiality requires that client data not be entered without adequate contractual and technical safeguards.
The duty of professional competence requires solicitors to understand the limitations and capabilities of these tools, always verifying the output generated before use to avoid disciplinary sanctions or professional liability.
Independence must be preserved, avoiding AI biases or excessive dependence on tools compromising human judgement and objectivity. Finally, transparency towards the client is essential: the solicitor must inform the client of the use of generative AI if they can assume that the client may object to the use of such tools.
CONCLUSION
The use of AI is now widespread, but it is necessary to be aware of how these tools work, starting with reading the contractual and privacy conditions of each individual tool used.
At this link, you can find the complete CCBE guide .