Can Florida Lawyers Use AI? What the Florida Bar's Guidance Actually Says (in Plain English)

When I talk with estate planning attorneys, whether or not they are even allowed to use AI is almost always one of the first things they ask, often even before time savings or cost ever come up. The short answer is yes! Florida lawyers can use AI, including tools like ChatGPT and Claude. The Florida Bar said so directly in January 2024, and the Florida Supreme Court has since written AI into the official comments to the Bar's rules.

The catch is that the lawyer, and the firm, still carries all of the responsibility. You have to protect client confidences, check everything the tool produces, bill honestly, and supervise how your staff uses it. So here's what the guidance says, where it came from, and what it means for a small firm that drafts wills and trusts rather than appellate briefs.

Where it starts: Florida Bar Ethics Opinion 24-1

On January 19, 2024, The Florida Bar's Board of Governors unanimously adopted Ethics Opinion 24-1. It was one of the first state bar opinions on generative AI, and it's still the core guidance in Florida (Florida Bar News coverage).

Here's its bottom line in its own words:

"In sum, a lawyer may ethically utilize generative AI technologies but only to the extent that the lawyer can reasonably guarantee compliance with the lawyer's ethical obligations."

The opinion doesn't ban any tool and doesn't approve any product. It treats AI like a new assistant who needs the same oversight you'd give a new hire, and it makes that comparison outright:

"Lawyers who rely on generative AI for research, drafting, communication, and client intake risk many of the same perils as those who have relied on inexperienced or overconfident nonlawyer assistants."

Look at what's on that list if you run an estate planning firm. Drafting, communication, client intake. Those are the workflows where most small firms would start.

The four duties

Opinion 24-1 is built around four duties that already existed. Nothing new here, just how each one applies once AI is in the picture.

Confidentiality matters most

The opinion recommends getting a client's informed consent before using a third-party AI program with their confidential information. It also says lawyers should look at the vendor's practices: whether it keeps your data, whether it trains on it, how it secures it, and what happens to it when you stop using the service.

The flip side gets less attention:

"If the use of a generative AI program does not involve the disclosure of confidential information to a third-party, a lawyer is not required to obtain a client's informed consent pursuant to Rule 4-1.6."

So how you set up AI matters as much as whether you use it. Running AI on a template or a blank form is different from pasting in a client's asset list. A business-tier account that doesn't train on your data is different from a free consumer account. And a model running on hardware you control is different from both.

Billing: good news for flat-fee practices

The opinion warns that efficiency "must not result in falsely inflated claims of time." Then it adds:

"Lawyers may want to consider adopting contingent fee arrangements or flat billing rates for specific services so that the benefits of increased efficiency accrue to the lawyer and client alike."

Plenty of estate planning firms already charge flat fees for plan packages. For them, time saved on intake, drafting cleanup, or follow-up turns straight into capacity. The Bar is more or less pointing at that model as the clean way to benefit from AI.

Intake chatbots

The opinion specifically warns against "an overly welcoming generative AI chatbot that may provide legal advice, fail to immediately identify itself as a chatbot, or fail to include clear and reasonably understandable disclaimers." If the chat widget on your site starts answering "Do I need a trust?", you have a problem.

Since 2024, AI is in the rules themselves

The ethics opinion was advisory. The Florida Supreme Court has since put AI into the official rules in two steps.

October 2024: the Bar rule comments. In In re: Amendments to Rules Regulating The Florida Bar (SC2024-0032, decided August 29, 2024, effective October 28, 2024), the Court added generative AI to the comments of four rules:

• Competence (4-1.1): Lawyers need to understand "the benefits and risks associated with the use of technology, including generative artificial intelligence."
• Confidentiality (4-1.6): "A lawyer should be aware that generative artificial intelligence may create risks to the lawyer's duty of confidentiality."
• Supervising lawyers (4-5.1): Firms should "consider safeguards for the firm's use of technologies such as generative artificial intelligence."
• Nonlawyer assistants (4-5.3): Lawyers should "consider safeguards when assistants use technologies such as generative artificial intelligence."

Small firms should pay attention to that last one. If your paralegal runs a client's trust document through a free chatbot, that's on you now.

June 2026: court filings. The Court amended Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration 2.515 (SC2026-0673, effective June 15, 2026). Anyone who signs a court filing now represents that "the legal authorities identified exist and are accurately cited." Courts can sanction violations, anywhere from a reprimand to dismissal and fee awards. You don't have to disclose that you used AI. You have to be right, AI or not.

The tech CLE requirement. Florida got here early. Since 2017, Florida lawyers have had to complete 3 hours of technology CLE in every 3-year cycle, and an AI course is an easy way to cover it.

What courts have done

Every AI sanctions case so far comes down to the same thing: a lawyer filed something the AI made up, and nobody checked. These are the cases that come up most in Florida, newest first:

The Capital Standard court put it well: "the use of artificial intelligence must be accompanied by the application of actual intelligence in its execution."

For estate planning. Most of your work isn't litigation, so these citation cases can feel far away. The principle still applies. If an AI tool "helpfully" fills a gap and your trust names the wrong successor trustee, that's the same failure. Nobody checked the output. And probate and trust administration filings fall under the new Rule 2.515 certification too.

A checklist for estate planning firms

These are the questions I'd want a small firm to be able to answer before rolling out AI. They come out of the guidance above, but the framing is mine, and your ethics counsel may weigh them differently.

• Do we know which AI tools our staff already use? Free ones on personal accounts included. (Rule 4-5.3 comment)
• For each tool, where does client data go? Is it stored? Used for training? Who at the vendor can see it? (Opinion 24-1, Rule 4-1.6)
• Are we on business-grade accounts with data-handling terms we've actually read, not consumer accounts?
• Do our engagement letters address AI use and get informed consent where client data goes to a third-party tool? (Opinion 24-1)
• Is there a human review step before anything AI-assisted reaches a client, a signing ceremony, or a court? Who does it?
• Do we have a written firm policy on what goes into AI tools and what never does? (Rule 4-5.1 comment)
• Does our website chat identify itself as a bot and stay away from legal questions? (Opinion 24-1, advertising rules)
• Is our billing honest about efficiency? Are we using flat fees where they make sense? (Opinion 24-1, Rule 4-1.5)
• Has someone at the firm done a tech CLE on AI this cycle?

If most of your answers are "not yet," you're in good company. Most small firms I talk to are in the same spot. Nobody's saying stay away from AI. Use it on purpose, so you aren't finding out later what your staff has been pasting into free chatbots.

How I work with law firms

Before I recommend any tool, we map which client information each workflow touches. That tells us what can run through a cloud AI service, what needs a business-grade account that doesn't train on your data, and what should stay on systems you control.

A lot of the time savings in an estate planning office don't require sending client confidences anywhere new. Cleaning up template output, routing intake answers into your practice management system, sending reminders for signings and trust funding. Where client data does have to flow through AI, we set it up so your engagement letter, your vendor terms, and your review steps line up with the guidance above.

I'm not your ethics counsel, and I won't tell you what the rules require. That's your call, or your lawyer's. I design workflows that make that call easy to stick to.