The Law Society AI practice note, published on 21 October 2026 under the title Using artificial intelligence in legal practice, is the fullest statement yet from the profession’s own body on how existing duties apply when a firm uses AI. It creates no new rule, and the Society says in terms that it neither promotes nor discourages the technology. It carries the SRA’s general principles into the documents a small firm already produces, which makes it worth an afternoon of a partner’s time.
The press release that followed on 22 October led on the line that AI is not a legal entity and that responsibility remains human. Brett Dixon, the Society’s president, said that professional responsibility cannot be transferred to any AI system. You heard the same message in the SRA warning notice on AI misuse in August. The detail beneath it is newer, and most of it bears on what your firm tells and charges its clients.
What goes in your client care letter
The note suggests that your client care letter or terms of business say how far the firm uses AI, and how a client’s own use of AI might affect the handling of their matter. On transparency it goes further, suggesting you tell clients that the firm uses AI, which systems it uses, for which tasks and how client information is protected. If a client asks how AI was used on their matter, the note expects a clear and accurate answer, covering whether their information went into the system and whether a solicitor reviewed the output.
Consent is a separate question. The note treats routine use inside your own secure systems, where client data does not train the model, as a matter for transparency rather than informed consent. Using client information in a way that puts confidentiality at risk, including training an AI system on it, is likely to need the client’s specific consent. Where a client sends you material a chatbot produced, the note supports asking them to say so and validating it before you rely on it, the pattern set out in clients using AI chatbots to check your advice.
Billing the hour the tool saved
The charging section is the part most firms will need to act on. Where fees are time-based, the note says you should not bill for the time a task would have taken without AI. Time spent operating the system, checking its output, revising it and applying judgement can be charged where the client care letter allows it. A separate technology charge has to be explained and agreed in advance, and it must not recover through a fee what your hourly rates already cover.
On fixed, capped and value-based fees the note asks for a clear scope and an overall fee that stays justified. Read that beside the evidence in AI adoption is near universal, but fees have not moved, and the question for a firm on hourly rates becomes how it prices work it now finishes faster.
Checking the work, and who learns from it
The note states that an AI system cannot reliably validate its own results, and that relying on AI to verify AI outputs will not satisfy your professional obligations. On privilege it advises caution, citing an Upper Tribunal decision of 2026 which said that uploading confidential documents to a public AI tool placed them in the public domain. Whether prompts and outputs count as privileged working papers is still unsettled.
The Society also says AI cannot replace core skills and should not stunt the professional growth of junior lawyers. On the opposite risk, it records that neither it nor the SRA has issued guidance on when a solicitor should use AI, and it knows of no planned positive duty to do so. That bears on the argument in when not using AI becomes negligence.
This month, add a short AI paragraph to your client care letter and terms of business covering use, systems, protection of client data and the client’s own use of chatbots. Check that your time recording separates review time from the time a task used to take, and ask your supervisors how a trainee now learns the drafting a tool produces.
The Law Society published Using artificial intelligence in legal practice on 21 October 2026, open to read on its website without registration, and announced it in a press release dated 22 October. The Law Society Gazette reported it on 21 October.
If you want your client care letter and charging terms read against the new note before your next engagement goes out, talk it through with us.
