| AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT clearly have the potential to become useful tools in a lawyer’s toolbox. Of course, lawyers using AI chatbots, like lawyers using any other tools, must be mindful of their ethical obligations, including not only the duty to verify the accuracy of the results of legal research, but also the duty to maintain client confidentiality. In considering what client information can be used in prompting a chatbot, Rule 1.6 of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides guidance, but not a bright‑line rule.
Rule 1.6(a) provides, in pertinent part, that “[a] lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b).” Thus, the primary question in prompting a chatbot is whether the prompt will “reveal information relating to the representation.”
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