The compliance burden created by California's proposed AI ethics rules doesn't fall evenly across the profession. For well-resourced firms, it's manageable. For public defenders and legal aid attorneys already carrying impossible caseloads, it may eliminate the one tool with the most potential to close the representation gap.
In the second installment of his series for the Daily Journal, Joe Stephens, JD, Steno's Director of Legal Solutions, brings his unique perspective as an attorney who runs the only public defender office in the country housed inside a law school.
His argument picks up where part one left off. California's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (COPRAC) has proposed adding a comment to Rule 1.1 that requires attorneys to personally review and verify any AI-generated output before relying on it. The duty can't be delegated. Joe describes the operational reality:
Consider what this does to the operational math of an overburdened legal aid or public defender office. If an attorney carrying 400 active files uses an advanced AI tool to draft a standard motion to suppress, the rule requires that the attorney personally audit every line or fact, before filing. That means the operational bottleneck does not disappear; it moves.
The impact on pro se litigants is sharper still. Direct-to-consumer legal tools represent the most promising path toward expanding access for people who can't afford an attorney. A framework requiring lawyer supervision of every AI output either pushes those tools into lawyer-mediated channels—defeating the purpose—or forces them outside the regulated profession entirely. As Joe writes:
State bars pursuing this path leave only two realistic options for public-facing legal tools. Either these platforms must be restricted entirely to lawyer-mediated use, which defeats the purpose of expanding access, or they will be forced to operate entirely outside the regulated profession.
Joe doesn't stop at the critique. He proposes a concrete alternative: tiered verification standards calibrated to the stakes of the work, clearer distinctions between enterprise and consumer tools, and explicit carve-outs for legal aid and indigent defense offices.