Minding the Gaps in Lawyers’ Rules of Professional Conduct

Abstract

When lawyers’ rules of conduct fall short in expressing contemporary professional responsibility values, regulators fill this gap with modifications, additions, and subtractions to or from enumerated provisions. One example of this phenomenon makes reference to technology in legal practice: A comment to Rule 1.1 added in 2012 tells lawyers that competent representation now includes knowing the risks and benefits of “relevant technology.” Offering a wider instance of gap filling with respect to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, this Article commends artificial intelligence as a source of guidance to individual lawyers that works by locating instances of inadvertence before they occur. It notes specifics of how the profession can (and already does) use this technology to help mind that gap and nominates continuing legal education as a source of expansion.

Keywords: Attorneys, Professional Responsibility, Model Rules, Artificial Intelligence