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IN FORCE EVERYWHERE ยท CONSENT BEFORE INPUT

ABA Opinion 512: informed consent before client information enters an AI tool

Where this stands today

This one applies everywhere and is stricter than most lawyers realise. ABA Formal Opinion 512 remains current. There is no general duty to tell clients you used AI, but you must obtain client informed consent before putting information relating to the representation into a self-learning AI tool, and boilerplate engagement-letter language does not count. You must disclose if the client asks, if the output influences a significant decision, or if it affects your fee.

The words that matter

general consent language in an engagement letter is insufficient: consent must convey the specific risk and the specific benefit

What a record gives you

Client information never leaves your machine, so the consent problem does not arise in the first place. The receipt carries fingerprints of the file, never the content and never the filename.

Regulayer makes the record. Software on your own machine that signs, at the moment you finish, which tool you declared, which checks you ran and who reviewed the work. Your client, your insurer or the court checks it in seconds, free, with no account and no access to a word of your file.

See it work, no signup Pricing

Checked 29 July 2026. Rules change: the authority itself governs, and this page is not legal advice. If you spot something out of date, tell us at hello@regulayer.com and we will correct it and say when.

When it is challenged

Opposing counsel looks at a sealed record and says: so what. What you say back →, in evidence-law terms, with the certification template.

Seven days free, then $349 a month.

A signed record of which AI you used and what you checked, sealed to the exact file you deliver, made on your own machine and checkable free by anyone you send it to.

Start the free weekOr verify a real record, free →