Your State Bar Has AI Ethics Rules — Here's the Two-Step Audit Every Small Firm Should Run This Quarter

Published: April 23, 2026 | By: The Crossing Report | Last updated: April 2026

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Summary

On April 9, 2026, Justia hosted a free CLE on AI and ethics for lawyers — and somewhere in the Q&A, an attorney asked the question that most small firm owners never get around to asking: "What does my state bar actually require?" Most compliance conversations stop at the ABA level. This one goes further. Two resources — the Justia 50-State Survey of AI and Attorney Ethics Rules and the ABA Practical Checklist for AI Responsible Use — let you run a complete two-stop compliance audit in under two hours. Here's exactly how to do it.

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Why "I'll Check My State's Rules Later" Is the Wrong Answer in 2026

There's a common assumption in small law firms: if you're following the ABA's guidance on AI, you're covered. The assumption is understandable. The ABA sets national ethics standards. Their Formal Opinion 512 (2024) is the most cited document in legal AI compliance. Their Law Practice Division published a practical checklist in January 2026 that most attorneys haven't read yet.

But the ABA sets a floor, not a ceiling. State bars sit on top of that floor — and in 2026, they're moving fast.

California's State Bar has issued some of the most detailed AI ethics guidance in the country, covering disclosure in engagement letters, confidentiality requirements for AI vendor data practices, and supervision obligations for attorneys using AI tools in litigation. Illinois, New York, and Florida have each issued their own formal opinions that go beyond the ABA baseline in specific areas. And more states issue new opinions every quarter.

The attorney who says "I follow the ABA rules" and hasn't checked their state bar's position is operating on incomplete information. In most cases, they're fine. In some cases — particularly if a complaint surfaces or a court inquires about AI use in a filed document — that gap becomes a problem.

The good news: checking is now a two-hour task, not a week-long research project. Two resources make this possible.

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Step 1 — The Justia 50-State Survey: Find Out What Your State Actually Requires

What the survey covers (and what it doesn't)

The Justia 50-State Survey of AI and Attorney Ethics Rules is the most comprehensive free resource available for mapping state-specific AI ethics guidance. It aggregates formal bar opinions, informal guidance documents, proposed rule amendments, and bar committee reports across all 50 states — organized by state and updated continuously as new opinions are published.

For each state, the survey shows:

• Whether the state bar has issued a formal AI ethics opinion (and links to it directly)
• Whether guidance is informal, proposed, or formally adopted
• Which ethics rules the state has addressed in the context of AI (competence, supervision, confidentiality, candor, fees)
• Pending rule amendments or open comment periods

What it doesn't cover: court-specific rules. Individual federal districts and many state courts have their own AI disclosure requirements for filed documents — requirements that exist outside the bar ethics framework entirely. The Justia survey focuses on bar opinions and ethics rules, not procedural court rules.

How to use it: find your state in under 5 minutes

Go to the Justia 50-State Survey. Click your state. Read what's there.

If your state has a formal opinion, open it. Spend 20 minutes reading it. Most formal bar opinions are organized around specific Rules of Professional Conduct — competence (Rule 1.1), supervision (Rules 5.1 and 5.3), confidentiality (Rule 1.6), candor (Rule 3.3), and fees (Rule 1.5). As you read, ask: does my firm have a documented practice for each area the opinion addresses?

If your state has informal guidance only, it still matters. Informal guidance signals what your bar is watching and how it will likely evaluate AI-related complaints even before a formal opinion is issued.

Bookmark the page for your state. Return to it every quarter. The landscape changes.

What to do if your state has "no formal guidance yet"

Approximately 20 states had no formal AI-specific opinion as of Q2 2026. If your state is one of them, don't treat the absence as a free pass.

Three sources fill the gap:

1. ABA Formal Opinion 512 (2024) — the national baseline. We've covered this in detail in our ABA Opinion 512 piece. If your state hasn't issued AI-specific guidance, disciplinary bodies will generally look to Formal Opinion 512 as the relevant standard.

2. Your state's general competence and supervision rules — existing rules apply regardless of the tool used. The question isn't whether there's an AI-specific rule; it's whether you can demonstrate competent, supervised legal work.

3. The ABA Practical Checklist — which brings us to Step 2.

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Step 2 — The ABA Checklist: Audit Your Practice Against the Bar's Standards

We've covered the ABA Practical Checklist for Using AI Responsibly in Your Law Firm in depth previously. Here's the condensed version, focused on what to do in the context of this audit workflow.

The ABA Practical Checklist, published in January 2026 by Law Technology Today, organizes AI compliance obligations around five ethics rules.

The five ethics rules the checklist addresses

Rule 1.1 — Competence. Do you understand the capabilities and limitations of the AI tools you're using? This includes understanding when the tool is likely to produce errors, what types of tasks it handles reliably, and what human review steps are required before the output is used.

Rules 5.1 and 5.3 — Supervision. Can you supervise an AI tool the same way you supervise a paralegal or associate? This means reviewing AI output, not just passing it through. It also means establishing firm-wide standards so that AI use by any attorney in the firm meets the same baseline.

Rule 1.6 — Confidentiality. What happens to client data when you enter it into an AI tool? Does the vendor's terms of service permit training on submitted data? Is the tool SOC 2 certified? Does it store data in the US? Most consumer AI tools don't meet the bar's confidentiality standard for client work.

Rule 3.3 — Candor. Are you verifying every case citation, every factual claim, every legal conclusion before it's submitted to a court? The checklist's treatment of candor is blunt: AI-generated citations that are wrong are your responsibility, not the AI's.

Rule 1.5 — Fees. If AI materially reduces the time required to produce work, does your billing reflect that? This is the least-discussed dimension of AI ethics in legal practice — and it's one that several bar opinions are beginning to address.

The "treat AI like a junior colleague" framework

The checklist's organizing principle is worth internalizing: treat AI output the way you'd treat work from a junior associate. You'd verify their case citations. You'd check their reasoning. You'd confirm jurisdictional accuracy. You wouldn't submit their draft without review.

The same five steps apply to AI output: fact verification, citation verification, reasoning review, jurisdictional accuracy, and ethical check. This framework travels well — it works whether you're using AI for research, drafting, document review, or client communications.

Three firm policy gaps the checklist commonly reveals

Most small firms that work through the checklist honestly identify the same three gaps:

1. No documented AI tool approval process. The firm uses AI tools, but no one has formally evaluated them for data security and confidentiality compliance. Individual attorneys chose tools on their own.

2. No supervision standard for AI output. There's no written policy describing what human review is required before AI-assisted work reaches a client or court. Review happens informally, if at all.

3. No engagement letter language covering AI use. The firm uses AI for client work but has never updated engagement letters to address it — creating a disclosure gap in states that require it.

All three are fixable in an afternoon. The checklist tells you what to fix. Your state bar's guidance tells you how urgently.

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The Two-Step Workflow: Running Both Audits Together

Here's the complete workflow. Block two hours. Do it once this quarter.

Time required: under two hours total

Hour 1 — Justia state survey review (30–45 min)

• Pull up the Justia 50-State Survey
• Find your state. Read the formal opinion or guidance documents in full
• Note every Rule of Professional Conduct addressed
• Write down: what my state specifically requires that I may not have documented

Hour 1 continued — ABA Checklist review (30–45 min)

• Pull up the ABA Practical Checklist
• Work through it section by section: competence, supervision, confidentiality, candor, fees
• For each section, note: is this gap documented in firm policy? Does our engagement letter address this?

Hour 2 — Gap documentation and action items

• List every gap identified in both resources
• Prioritize: what is required now vs. what is recommended best practice
• Draft one-paragraph written policies for the top two or three gaps
• Flag any AI tools currently in use that may not meet the confidentiality standard

What to document when you're done

Don't finish the audit and file it away. Create a simple one-page document that shows:

• The date the audit was conducted
• Which state bar opinions were reviewed
• Which AI tools were assessed
• What gaps were found
• What policy updates were made or are pending

This document is your defensible compliance record. If a question about your AI use ever comes up — from a client, a court, or a disciplinary body — you have evidence that you took your ethics obligations seriously and acted on them. Firms that skip the documentation step get little credit for the work.

How to update your engagement letter and supervision policy

Two updates most small firms should make after running this audit:

Engagement letter: Add a sentence or short paragraph covering your firm's AI use policy. At minimum: whether you use AI tools in your practice, what categories of work they're used for, and whether you're disclosing it to clients as a matter of firm policy. For states with specific disclosure guidance (California, New York, Illinois), check the Justia survey entry for your state's current requirements.

Supervision policy: Write a one-paragraph internal policy stating that all AI-generated work product must be reviewed by a licensed attorney before it reaches a client or is submitted to a court. It doesn't need to be long. It needs to exist, be in writing, and be communicated to everyone who touches client work.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Justia AI and Attorney Ethics Rules 50-State Survey?

A free, publicly available resource at Justia.com that maps every US state's formal bar opinions, guidance documents, and proposed amendments on AI use in legal practice. It's organized by state, covering competence, confidentiality, supervision, and candor obligations. Unlike ABA guidance, it shows you what your specific jurisdiction requires. As of Q2 2026, some states have issued comprehensive formal opinions, others have released informal guidance only, and approximately 20 states have no formal AI-specific opinion yet. The survey is updated continuously as new opinions are issued.

Does the ABA Practical AI Checklist apply to small law firms?

Yes, and it's specifically useful for solo and small group practices because it organizes the ethics obligations into an operational sequence — not abstract rules, but the specific steps an attorney must complete before AI-assisted work reaches a client or court. Small firms without a formal governance department benefit most from its structure. For a 3–10 attorney firm, it takes roughly an hour to work through the checklist and identify gaps in current practice.

What if my state bar hasn't issued AI guidance yet?

Approximately 20 states still have no formal AI-specific opinion as of Q2 2026. For those states, default to: (1) ABA Formal Opinion 512 (2024) as the baseline ethics standard, (2) your state's general competence and supervision rules, and (3) the ABA Practical Checklist as an operational framework. The absence of state-specific guidance is not a safe harbor — the underlying ethics rules still apply. Courts and disciplinary bodies in states without formal AI guidance have still sanctioned attorneys for AI-related errors under existing competence and candor rules.

How often should a small law firm re-run this AI ethics audit?

At minimum, once per quarter in 2026. The landscape is moving: states are issuing new opinions, new AI tools are launching, and bar guidance is being revised as real cases surface. The Justia 50-State Survey updates continuously — bookmark it. Set a calendar reminder to re-run Step 1 (the Justia survey) every 90 days to check for new opinions in your state. A firm that ran this audit in January and adopted a new AI drafting tool in March should re-run the checklist before that tool touches client work.

Does using AI in client work require disclosure to clients?

It depends on your state. Several states — including California, Illinois, and New York — have guidance on AI disclosure in client communications or engagement letters. California's State Bar has been among the most active, issuing formal guidance on disclosure in engagement letters and confidentiality requirements for AI vendor data practices. The Justia 50-State Survey will show you your state's current position. In the absence of specific guidance, the conservative posture recommended by the ABA is to disclose AI use in client-facing work product and obtain informed consent where the use is significant.

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This Week's Action Step

Run Step 1 now. It takes 10 minutes to look up your state on the Justia 50-State Survey and see what your bar has published. You may be surprised by how much — or how little — is there. Either way, you'll know where you stand.

Block the full two-hour audit for later this week.

If you missed Justia's free CLE on AI and Ethics for Lawyers from April 9, 2026 — check whether a recording is available. It's practical, not academic, and covers the exact audit territory this post maps out.

For a deeper look at the AI compliance landscape for law firms, see our AI compliance hub for law firms and professional services.

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The state AI compliance landscape changes every quarter. Subscribers to The Crossing Report get a standing update in each issue when a new state bar opinion or signing event affects law firm practice — including which states issued guidance, what changed, and what it means for small firm operations. If that kind of intelligence belongs in your inbox every Monday, consider a premium subscription.